Cibrarjp  of  Ithe  trheolojical  Seminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


•a^t- 


PRESENTED  BY 


Jolin  Stuart  Conning,  D.D, 

CV      ZDZU       .  i)J 

Scott,  Delaware  Walter. 
Christianity  and  the  Jew 


/     4: 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  Jjt 

Jin  Jippeal  to  the  Church  of  Christ 
to  Preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Jew 


,^^H  Of  mntji 


rV 


By 

DELAWARE    W.    SCOTT 

Wilh  Foreword  by 

FRANK    M.    THOMAS,  D.D. 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church  South 


CINCINNATI 

The  Standard  Publishing  Company 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
The  Standard  Publishing  Company 


To 

my  faithful  and  loving  wife^ 

Frances  Smith  Scott, 

who  has  toiled  with  me  in  the  preparation 

of  this  work, 

this  book  is  affectionately 

dedicated. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
I. 

Christianity  and  the  Jew 13 

II. 
The  Jew  and  the  Great  Commission 19 

III. 
The  Cost 29 

IV. 
Christianity  and  the  Great  Commission 36 

V. 
Christianity's  Debt  to  the  Jew 45 

VI. 
The  Jew  in  Ancient  History 52 

VII. 

The  Jew  in  American  History 59 

VIII. 
The  Jew  in  Literature,  Arts  and  Science 67 

IX. 
The  Jew's  Contribution  to  Religion 75 

X. 
The  Spiritual  Unrest  of  the  Jewish  People 85 

XI. 

The  Hand  on  the  Dial 93 

5 


FOREWORD 

A  book  like  this  needs  no  introduction.  It 
speaks  for  itself  on  one  of  the  greatest  themes  that 
can  come  before  mankind.  For  the  final  explana- 
tion of  the  relation  of  Jew  to  Christian  is  the 
explanation  of  human  life.  The  secret  of  the  pres- 
ent universe  lies  unfolded  there.  Hence  this  book 
is  epochal.  It  deals  with  the  two  greatest  facts  in 
history — Judaism  and  Christianity.  It  is  a  timely 
book  because  never  has  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ 
been  so  interested  in  her  Jewish  brethren  as  now.  It 
is  an  interesting  book  because  it  portrays  in  telling 
and  eloquent  language  the  infinite  debt  which  Chris- 
tianity owes  to  Judaism  and  the  mighty  part  the 
Jew  has  played  in  history.  It  is  a  significant  book, 
appearing  at  a  time  when  Judaism  is  facing  the 
third  great  crisis  in  its  history.  It  is  a  noble  book, 
marked  by  sanity  and  brotherly  love,  breathing  the 
true  spirit  of  Christ.  It  is  a  providential  book 
because  it  will  help  to  focus  the  kindly  feeling  now 
rising  throughout  Christendom  toward  Israel  into 
a  mighty  tidal  wave  of  genuine  affection  before 
which  the  veil  that  hides  the  true  Messiah  from 
that  people  must  melt  away,  and  they,  too,  shall  see 
our  King  in  his  glory.  It  gives  me  a  holy  joy 
to  commend  it  to  every  Jew  and  to  every  Christian, 
May  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  make  it  a  ministering 


8  FOREWORD 

angel  toward  the  bringing  in  of  that  day  when  we 
shall  be  no  more  twain,  but  one  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord. 

Frank   M.   Thomas. 
Eastertide,  1914. 


INTRODUCTION 

It  is  with  no  little  trepidation  and  anxiety  that 
this  unpretentious  volume  is  sent  forth.  This  little 
book  and  I  have  had  many  pleasant  hours  together. 
We  have  chatted  by  the  fireside,  we  have  walked 
in  the  moonlight,  and  have  lain  on  the  same  pillow. 
We  have  been  companions  together  for  many  long 
and  weary  months. 

"Christianity  and  the  Jew"  is  the  child  of 
prayer.  Years  ago,  in  my  youth,  I  formed  a  deep 
and  lasting  admiration  for  the  Jewish  people.  I 
loved  the  heroic  in  the  races  of  men,  and  no  history 
gripped  me  with  such  force  as  that  of  the  Jews. 
When  a  child  they  played  for  me  in  the  role  of 
warriors,  and  I  stood  with  them  on  many  a  battle- 
field ;  when  in  college  they  played  for  me  in  the 
role  of  the  torch-bearers  of  civilization;  but  now 
they  are  playing  for  me  in  Jehovah's  plan  of  the 
world's   redemption   through   Jesus   Christ. 

Years  ago  I  wondered  no  little  why  the  Jews 
were  so  hated  and  so  mistreated  by  the  Gentile 
nations.  I  heard  men  speak  well  of  other  races — 
the  German,  the  French,  the  Spanish,  the  English, 
the  Japanese — but  no  man  had  a  good  word  for 
the  Jew.  Then  I  saw  churches  standing  every- 
where, their  doors  flung  open  wide,  giving  a  wel- 
come to  every  race  and  tongue  in  the  world,  but 

9 


10  INTRODUCTION 

none  to  the  Jew.  I  heard  preachers  pray  for  every 
nationality  under  the  sun,  but  never  did  I  hear  a 
prayer  offered  that  the  Jew  might  be  saved.  Then 
I  watched  the  missionaries  go  out  to  every  tribe 
and  family  of  earth,  but  none  went  out  to  the  Jew. 

The  plea  of  this  little  book  may  be  weak  and 
clumsy,  but  surely  it  is  timely.  Its  message  may 
not  reach  very  far,  but  my  earnest  prayer  is  that 
it  may  reach  deep.  If  it  can  rouse  a  few  souls 
to  join  with  Paul  in  his  prayer  that  "all  Israel 
might  be  saved,"  I  shall  be  amply  repaid.  If  this 
book  comes  to  you,  receive  it  kindly,  and  hear  its 
message.  And  then,  as  one  who  loves  Christ  and 
his   people,   think — think — think. 

The  wise  man  of  old  said,  "As  a  man  thinketh 
within  himself,  so  is  he."  As  we  think  about  God, 
so  are  we;  as  we  think  about  Christ,  so  are  we; 
as  we  think  about  the  commission  of  our  Lord, 
so  are  we;  as  we  think  about  the  Jew,  so  are 
we.  Evidently  we  have  been  doing  some  very 
wrong  and  very  narrow  thinking  in  these  past  few 
hundred  years.  We  have  done  a  great  deal  of 
thinking  about  the  Jew.  And  our  thinking  has 
grown  into  deeds,  and  deeds  have  grown  into 
history,  and  history  has  created  a  sort  of  sub- 
conscious mind  in  us  that  the  Jew  is  not  worth 
saving.  The  language  of  the  Psalmist  fittingly 
describes  the  condition  of  the  Jews  throughout  the 
world  to-day : 

"When  my  spirit  was  overwhelmed  within  me, 
Thou  knewest  my  path. 
In  the  way  wherein  I  walk 


INTRODUCTION  11 

Have  they  hidden  a  snare  for  me. 

Look  on  my  right  hand  and  see; 

For  there  is  no  man  that  knoweth  me: 

Refuge  hath  failed  me; 

No  man  careth  for  my  soul." 

The  church  is  making  provision  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  Japanese,  for  the  people  of  China,  and 
India,  and  Africa,  and  the  islands  of  the  sea.  Is 
it  not  high  time  that  we  were  beginning  to  pay  a 
debt  that  reaches  back  across  the  ages  to  the 
times  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour,  when  he  gave  his 
great  commission  to  a  few  Jewish  apostles  and 
evangelists,  "Go  ye  therefore,  and  make  disciples 
of  all  the  nations"?  From  whom  did  you  receive 
this  good  news  of  Christ?  From  a  Gentile 
preacher?  Yes.  But  from  whom  did  he  receive  the 
good  news?  From  another  Gentile  preacher.  But 
from  whom  did  he  receive  it?  From  another  Gen- 
tile preacher.  And  thus  we  trace  it  back,  back, 
back,  through  generation  after  generation  to  the 
time  when  these  Jewish  apostles  and  evangelists 
"went   everywhere   preaching  the   word." 

The  light  of  all  the  ages  converges  upon  us 
to-day,  and  the  divine  compulsion  that  once  sent 
Paul  forth  to  preach  Christ  to  the  world  should  also 
lead  us  to  exclaim,  'T  am  debtor  both  to  the  Jews 
and  to  the  Gentiles,  both  to  the  wise  and  to  the 
foolish.  So,  as  much  as  in  me  is,  I  am  ready  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature — including  the 
Jew." 

Delaware  W.  Scott. 

Louisville,  Ky.,  March  10,  1914. 


I. 

Christianity  and  the  Jew. 

How  strange  it  seems  to  us  to-day,  as  we 
approach  the  subject  of  "Christianity  and  the 
Jew,"  that  we  immediately  become  conscious  of  the 
fact  that  we  are  strangers.  Can  it  be  that  we 
never  met  before?  "Have  I  been  so  long  time 
with  you,  and  dost  thou  not  know  me?"  Did  you 
ever  hear  a  sermon  on  the  subject?  Did  you  ever 
hear  a  preacher  pray  for  the  conversion  of  the 
Jews  to  Christ?  Is  it  one  of  the  adjourned  ques- 
tions in  the  realm  of  Christianity? 

Rabbi  Shanfarber,  of  the  city  of  Chicago, 
recently  said:  "We  Jews  have  given  religion  to  the 
world,  but  we  have  little  ourselves.  We  gave  God 
to  the  world,  yet  we  have  little  of  God  in  our 
hearts.  The  Jews  are  not  studying  their  Bible — 
other  people  are  studying  it.  Our  tremendous 
indifference  is  our  worst  ailment.  We  are  troubled 
with  the  teaching  of  agnostic  atheism,  materialism, 
and  Christian  Science." 

No  races  of  men  have  ever  been  so  intimately 
related  and  associated  together  through  all  the  ages 
as  the  Christian  nations  and  the  Jews.  And  yet  no 
two  races  could  possibly  be  further  apart.  They 
live,  as  it  were,  in  two  distinct  and  separate  social 
and  religious  hemispheres  of  the  same  great  world. 

13 


14  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE  JEW 

The  Jew  has  purposely  swung  completely  away 
from  Christianity,  and  Christianity  has  shamelessly 
swung  away  from  the  Jew.  There  are  two  great 
and  fundamental  reasons  for  this  world-wide  gulf 
existing  between  Christians  and  Jews. 

First:  The  Jew  Himself.  His  hatred  for  Gen- 
tiles dates  back  to  the  time  when  he  established  an 
iron-clad  law  that  "the  Jews  have  no  dealings  with 
the  Samaritans."  And  the  long  years  of  bitter 
trials,  and  persecution,  and  plunder,  and  robbery 
have  not  tended  to  soften  his  heart.  Then,  the 
Jews  as  a  nation  openly  rejected  their  Messiah,  and 
repudiated  his  claims  upon  them  as  his  chosen 
messengers  to  the  world,  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago.  There  has  never  been  any  relenting  nor 
shadow  of  turning  to  this  day.  They  steadfastly 
set  their  faces  against  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and 
to-day  they  are  just  as  resolute  in  their  hostility 
to  Jesus  Christ  as  when  they  stood  in  Pilate's  judg- 
ment-hall to  cry,  "Away  with  him!     Crucify  him!" 

Second:  The  Unchristlike  Spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity. "The  Elect  Lady,"  "The  Bride,"  "The 
Lamb's  Wife,"  has  shamelessly  and  malignantly 
abused  and  neglected  the  Jewish  people.  The 
Church  of  Christ,  through  her  intolerance  and 
bigotry,  has  forced  the  Jews  to  stand  where  they 
now  stand  in  their  attitude  toward  Christianity.  It 
is  not  the  Christ  enthroned  in  human  hearts,  but 
rather  the  absence  of  the  Christlike  spirit  in  the 
church,  that  has  driven  the  Jews  to  assume  their 
relentless  hostility  toward  Christianity.  The  Chris- 
tian nations  have  robbed,  and  plundered,  and  hated, 
and  hunted,  and  slaughtered  the  Jew  in  the  name 


CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW  15 

of  religion  through  all  these  centuries,  and  who 
can  really  condemn  him  for  his  contempt  for  it? 
The  Christian  nations  have  treated  him  no  better 
than  Nineveh,  and  Babylon,  and  Syria,  and  Persia, 
and  Greece,  and  Rome,  and  Turkey,  and  Spain,  and 
Russia  have  treated  him.  The  world  to-day 
despises  Mohammedanism  for  her  merciless  war- 
fare on  defenceless  women  and  children  of  Chris- 
tian faith.  But  how  much  better  have  the 
Christian  nations  treated  the  Jew,  and  for  the  very 
same  reasons? 

Even  in  our  most  cultured  Christian  communi- 
ties we  find  this  spirit  of  bigotry,  hatred,  and 
intolerance  manifesting  itself.  The  children  in  our 
Christian  homes  soon  learn  to  think  and  to  speak 
in  terms  of  contempt  for  the  Jew.  And  where  do 
they  learn  it?  They  learn  it  from  Christian 
fathers  and  mothers.  In  the  public  schools  of 
Christian  lands  the  children  of  Jewish  parentage  are 
twitted  all  day  long  by  such  infamous  terms  as 
"Jew,"  "Sheney,"  "Christ-killers,"  and  "Crucifiers." 
The  effect  of  this  unchristlike  spirit  is  enough  to 
drive  the  Jewish  child  to  despise  the  Christian  relig- 
ion. What  hope  can  we  have  of  ever  winning  such 
a  child  to  love  and  honor  the  Christ  whom  we 
profess  to  love  and  honor? 

In  Louisville,  Kentucky,  a  short  time  ago  a 
Jewish  child  came  into  her  father's  store  weeping 
bitterly.  The  father  asked  her  what  the  trouble 
was,  and  she  told  him  how  the  children  of  Christian 
parents  had  called  her  a  "Christ-killer."  The  father 
had  his  storm  of  rage — and  who  can  blame  him? 
If   your   children    should   be    insulted    and    abused 


16  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

every  day  because  of  your  faith,  would  you  not 
soon  learn  to  despise  the  system  of  religion  that 
gave  birth  to  the  insult?  If  the  children  of  Moham- 
medan parents  would  heap  insult  after  insult  upon 
your  child,  would  you  not  soon  learn  to  despise 
Mohammedanism  ? 

He  was  a  Jew  who  declared  in  the  early  ages 
of  the  church,  "But  I  would  not,  brethren,  have 
you  ignorant  of  this  mystery,  lest  ye  be  wise  in 
your  own  conceits,  that  a  hardening  in  part  hath 
befallen  Israel,  until  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  be 
come  in ;  and  so  all  Israel  shall  be  saved :  even  as 
it  is  written,  There  shall  come  out  of  Zion  the 
Deliverer:  He  shall  turn  away  ungodliness  from 
Jacob:  And  this  is  my  covenant  with  them,  When  I 
shall  take  away  their  sins"  (Rom.  11:25-27). 
"Brethren,  my  heart's  desire  and  my  supplication 
to  God  is  for  them,  that  they  might  be  saved" 
(Rom.  10:  1).  "For  there  is  no  distinction 
between  Jew  and  Greek:  for  the  same  Lord  is  Lord 
of  all,  and  is  rich  unto  all  that  call  upon  him :  for, 
Whosoever  shall  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord 
shall  be  saved.  How  then  shall  they  call  on  him 
in  whom  they  have  not  believed?  and  how  shall 
they  believe  in  him  whom  they  have  not  heard? 
How  shall  they  hear  without  a  preacher?  and  how 
shall  they  preach,  except  they  be  sent?"  (Rom.  10: 
12-15). 

God  has  made  no  distinction  between  the  Jew 
and  the  Gentile.  Christ  made  no  distinction 
between  the  Jew  and  the  Gentile.  The  Holy  Spirit 
made  no  distinction  between  the  Jew  and  the  Gen- 
tile.    Who,  then,  made  the  distinction?     And  who 


CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW  17 

makes  the  distinction  to-day  ?  Both  Jew  and  Gentile 
are  responsible — the  Jew,  through  his  contempt  for 
Christianity,  and  the  Christian,  through  his  con- 
tempt for  the  Jew.  Thus  a  gulf,  as  wide  as  the 
ocean  itself,  has  come  between  two  races,  which 
only  the  love  of  Christ  can  ever  bridge.  "For  the 
same  Lord  is  Lord  of  all,  and  is  rich  unto  all  that 
call  upon  him,"  but  the  Jew  never  hears  it,  he  never 
feels  it,  he  never  sees  it. 

Can  Christianity  exist  without  the  Jew?  Some 
would  say,  "Yes,  certainly  Christianity  can  exist 
without  the  Jew!"  Yes,  Christianity  will  march 
triumphantly  onward  without  his  presence  in  the 
ranks  of  the  church  and  his  voice  in  her  councils. 
But  this  is  not  the  question  under  consideration. 
The  question  is.  Can  the  Jew  exist  without  Chris- 
tianity? But  can  Christianity  exist  without  the 
influence  of  the  Jew?  The  Jewish  nation  launched 
forth  Christianity  on  her  heaven-born  mission,  and 
gave  her  the  machinery  and  the  power  for  her  con- 
quest of  the  world  for  Christ.  They  gave  Chris- 
tianity its  holy  background,  they  gave  it  its  spirit, 
its  enthusiasm,  its  zeal,  its  faith,  and  its  courage. 
And  we  can  no  more  separate  Christianity  from 
Jewish  influence,  and  expect  it  to  stand,  than  we 
can  separate  the  mortar  from  a  great  building,  and 
expect  it  to  stand. 

Christianity  drew  its  heart-blood  out  of  Jewish 
veins,  and  it  is  the  very  child  of  Jewish  parentage. 
The  very  warp  and  woof  of  Christianity  was  woven 
in  the  loom  of  Judaism.  And  while  we  may  exist 
without  his  bodily  presence  in  the  Church  of  Christ, 
we  can  not  exist  without  his  influence  and  his  con- 

2 


18  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

tribution  to  the  faith  once  delivered  unto  the  saints. 
The  whole  plan  of  Go<i  for  the  redemption  of  the 
world  through  Christ  is  stamped  in  Jewish  thought, 
moulded  amid  Jewish  environment,  sanctified  by 
Jewish  sacrifices,  played  upon  the  stage  of  Jewish 
history,  and  by  Jewish  actors. 


II. 

The  Jew  and  the  Great  Commission. 

As  the  Jews  were  God's  chosen  people  to  bring 
Christ  into  the  world,  so,  in  the  providence  of  God, 
they  became  his  chosen  people  to  preach  Christ  to 
the  world.  For  eighteen  hundred  years  before  the 
coming  of  Christ,  they  were  heralding  the  Messiah 
of  God  to  the  world.  He  was  Moses'  "Rock  and 
Shield,"  he  was  Joshua's  "Captain  of  the  Lord's 
Host,"  he  was  Samuel's  "Strength  of  Israel,"  he 
was  David's  "Anointed,"  he  was  Isaiah's  "Wonder- 
ful, Counsellor,  Mighty  God,  Everlasting  Father, 
Prince  of  Peace,"  he  was  Daniel's  "Messiah,"  he 
was  Zechariah's  "Fountain,"  he  was  Haggai's 
"Desire  of  All  Nations,"  he  was  Malachi's  "Messen- 
ger." All  of  these  prophecies  were  given  in 
anticipation  of  his  coming  by  holy  men  of  Israel. 
Then,  after  the  Christ  came  into  the  world,  he 
was  Matthew's  "Christ,  Emmanuel,  Governor,"  he 
was  Mark's  "Holy  One  of  God,"  he  was  Luke's 
"Judge  and  Consoler,"  he  was  John's  "Bread  of  Life, 
Lamb  of  God,  King  of  Kings  and  Lord  of  Lords, 
Alpha  awd  Omega,"  he  was  Paul's  "High  Priest, 
Mediator,  Author  and  Finisher  of  Our  Faith,"  he 
was  James'  "Lawgiver,"  he  was  Peter's  "Bishop  and 
Advocate." 

The   world   waited   through    long   centuries    for 

19 


20  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

"The  Prince  of  Peace,"  and  "The  Desire  of  All 
Nations,"  to  come.  But  at  last,  "when  the  fulness 
of  time  was  come,"  the  Jews  became  the  messengers 
of  God  to  preach  the  good  news  to  the  world. 

When  Christ  was  ready  to  enter  into  his  min- 
istry, he  chose  twelve  Jews  to  be  his  apostles,  and 
for  three  and  one-half  years  he  trained  them  for 
the  greatest  mission  ever  committed  into  the  hands 
of  men.  Christ's  commission  of  the  world-wide 
proclamation  of  his  will  among  men  was  taught  in 
a  succession  of  three  great  steps. 

I.  The  Mission  of  the  Twelve.  It  was  lim- 
ited to  the  house  of  Israel.  "These  twelve  Jesus 
sent  forth,  and  charged  them,  saying.  Go  not  into 
any  way  of  the  Gentiles,  and  enter  not  into  any 
city  of  the  Samaritans :  but  go  rather  to  the  lost 
sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel"  (Matt.  10:5,  6). 
They  were  to  learn  their  first  great  lesson  in  world- 
wide evangelization  at  home.  Then  came  the  sec- 
ond great  step  forward : 

II.  The  Mission  of  the  Seventy.  "Now 
after  these  things  the  Lord  appointed  seventy 
others,  and  sent  them  two  and  two  before  his  face 
into  every  city  and  place,  whither  he  himself  was 
about  to  come.  And  he  said  unto  them,  The  har- 
vest indeed  is  plenteous,  but  the  laborers  are  few: 
pray  ye  therefore  the  Lord  of  the  harvest,  that  he 
send  forth  laborers  into  his  har\^est"  (Luke  10: 
1,  2).  They  were  to  prepare  the  way  for  Christ. 
Their  message  was,  "The  kingdom  of  God  is  come 
nigh  unto  you."  Through  their  work  among  men, 
under  the  special  direction  and  oversight  of  their 
Master,   these   crude  fishermen   from   Galilee   were 


THE  JEW    AND   THE   GREAT    COMMISSION    21 

being  trained  for  the  larger  task  that  lay  before 
them.  They  were  in  the  school  of  missions,  learn- 
ing from  Jesus  Christ  how  to  preach  the  gospel  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God  among  men.  They  learned 
many  great  lessons,  but  none  greater  than  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  the  Son  of  the  living  God,  and 
that  he  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost.  It  may  seem  to  us  that  they  learned  the  les- 
son of  world-wide  missions  rather  slowly,  yet  when 
we  remember  that  the  whole  plan  of  God  was  in 
direct  conflict  with  their  race  prejudices  and  tradi- 
tions, we  almost  marvel  that  they  ever  learned  the 
lesson  at  all.  But  gradually  they  grew  from 
entered  apprentices  into  fellow-crafts,  and  from 
fellow-crafts  into  master  workmen  on  the  temple. 
Their  horizon  was  gradually  expanded  until  at  last 
they  could  see,  as  Peter  was  at  last  forced  to 
acknowledge,  that  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons." 
Slowly  Christ  had  trained  them  to  the  point  when 
they  were  to  enter  the  full  consummation  of  the 
plan  of  the  ages. 

III.  The  World-wide  Commission.  Then  came 
the  third  and  final  step.  "And  Jesus  came  to  them 
and  spake  unto  them,  saying,  All  authority  hath 
been  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Go 
ye,  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations, 
baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of 
the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit :  teaching  them  to 
observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  commanded  you : 
and  lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto  the  end 
of  the  world"  (Matt.  28:18-20).  "And  he  said 
unto  them,  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the 
gospel   to  the   whole   creation.     He   that   believeth 


22  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved:  but  he  that  dis- 
believeth  shall  be  condemned"  (Mark  16:  15,  16). 
"Thus  it  is  written,  that  the  Christ  should  suffer, 
and  rise  again  from  the  dead  the  third  day ;  and 
that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins  should  be 
preached  in  his  name  unto  all  the  nations,  beginning 
from  Jerusalem"  (Luke  24:46,  47).  "Jesus  there- 
fore said  unto  them  again,  Peace  be  unto  you : 
as  the  Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you. 
Whose  soever  sins  ye  forgive,  they  are  forgiven 
unto  them :  vv^hose  soever  sins  ye  retain,  they  are 
retained"   (John  20:21-23). 

And  then  came  the  final  instructions.  "But  tarry 
ye  in  the  city,  until  ye  be  clothed  with  power  from 
on  high"  (Luke  24:49).  "But  ye  shall  receive 
power  when  the  Holy  Spirit  is  come  upon  you: 
and  ye  shall  be  my  witnesses  both  in  Jerusalem,  and 
in  all  Judaea,  and  in  Samaria,  and  unto  the  utter- 
most part  of  the  earth"  (Acts  1:8).  Such  was 
the  stupendous  task  set  before  them.  They  would 
have  almost  staggered  before  the  great  commission, 
"Go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  the 
whole  creation,"  had  not  the  authority  of  Jesus 
Christ  stood  as  one  pillar,  and  the  personal  pres- 
ence and  leadership  of  Jesus  Christ  stood  as  the 
other  pillar  in  the  commission,  one  on  either  side, 
to  uphold  it  and  to  insure  ultimate  success. 

Jerusalem  was  the  dynamo,  from  which  was 
to  go  forth  the  message  that  was  to  electrify  the 
nations.  So,  in  strict  compliance  with  their  divine 
instructions  to  tarry  in  Jerusalem  until  they  should 
be  clothed  with  power  from  on  high,  we  find 
the  apostles  and  disciples  waiting  in  Jerusalem  for 


THE  JEW   AND   THE  GREAT   COMMISSION    23 

the  ten  days  intervening  between  the  ascension  of 
Jesus  and  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit  at  Pente- 
cost. They  spent  those  ten  days  in  earnest  prayer. 
There  was  no  promise  from  Christ  just  how  long 
they  should  have  to  wait  for  the  quickening  power 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  They  simply  prayed  a  Pente- 
costal revival  into  existence.  "And  when  the  day 
of  Pentecost  was  now  come,  they  were  all  together 
in  one  place.  And  suddenly  there  came  from 
heaven  a  sound  as  of  the  rushing  of  a  mighty 
wind,  and  it  filled  all  the  house  where  they  were 
sitting.  And  there  appeared  unto  them  tongues 
parting  asunder,  like  as  of  fire;  and  it  sat  upon 
each  one  of  them.  And  they  were  all  filled  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  and  began  to  speak  with  other 
tongues  as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utterance"  (Acts 
2:1-4). 

This  was  the  first  great  translation  of  the  word 
of  God  into  the  tongues  of  the  nations — a  verbal 
translation — and  yet  so  astounding  and  so  con- 
vincing that  devout  men,  Jews,  from  eighteen 
different  nations,  sojourning  in  Jerusalem,  were 
astonished  beyond  measure,  and  cried  out:  "Behold, 
are  not  all  these  that  speak  Galilseans?  And  how 
hear  we,  every  man  in  our  own  language  wherein 
we  were  born?  Parthians  and  Medes  and  Elamites, 
and  the  dwellers  in  Mesopotamia,  in  Judaea  and 
Cappadocia,  in  Pontus  and  Asia,  in  Phrygia  and 
Pamphylia,  in  Egypt  and  the  parts  of  Libya  about 
Cyrene,  and  sojourners  from  Rome,  both  Jews  and 
proselytes,  Cretans  and  Arabians,  we  hear  them 
speaking  in  our  tongues  the  mighty  works  of 
God." 


24  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

They  were  acting  within  the  full  province  of 
their  great  commission,  as  they  brought  the  message 
of  the  crucified  and  risen  Christ  to  the  thousands 
of  eager  listeners  who  heard  and  saw  that  day  the 
mighty  works  of  God.  And  in  the  great  sermon 
that  followed,  Peter  laid  the  foundation  for  a 
great  world-wide  empire.  He  builded  better  than 
he  knew.  The  events  following  Pentecost  show 
conclusively  that  the  apostles,  as  they  were  guided 
into  all  truth  by  the  quickening  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  were  led  to  declare  things  which  they  would 
not  otherwise  have  declared,  and  which  they  did  not 
then  even  understand.  They  taught  the  universal- 
ity of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ,  a  principle  utterly 
foreign  to  Jewish  minds  and  hopes.  Their  long 
centuries  of  race  hatred  had  led  them  to  believe 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  could  not  extend  beyond 
the  material  kingdom  of  David.  But  gradually  the 
Spirit  opened  their  minds,  and  the  truth  of  Peter's 
declaration,  "For  to  you  is  the  promise,  and  to 
your  children,  and  to  all  that  are  afar  off,  even  as 
many  as  the  Lord  our  God  shall  call  unto  him," 
began  to  dawn  upon  them.  But  not  until  Peter 
was  led  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  house  of  Corne- 
lius, that  he  might  open  the  door  for  the  Gentile 
nations,  did  they  realize  fully  and  completely  that 
"God  is  no  respecter  of  persons:  but  in  every 
nation,  he  that  feareth  him,  and  worketh  righteous- 
ness, is  acceptable  to  him." 

There  were  four  great  milestones  in  the  great 
commission,  four  mighty  strides  to  be  made  by  the 
church  toward  the  conquest  of  the  whole  world  for 
Christ. 


THE  JEW   AND   THE   GREAT    COMMISSION    25 

I.  Jerusalem.  Jerusalem  was  the  point  of 
departure.  There  were  many  great  reasons  why 
the  gospel  should  have  its  beginning  in  Jerusalem. 
It  had  been  the  great  city  where  God's  name  had 
been  reverenced  for  a  thousand  years.  It  was  in 
Jerusalem  that  the  temple  of  God  stood,  where  the 
altar  stood,  where  the  paraphernalia  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament dispensation  were  kept,  where  the  priesthood 
of  the  house  of  Israel  had  served  for  a  thousand 
years,  where  the  prophets  had  sent  forth  their 
messages.  It  was  in  Jerusalem  that  the  heartbeat 
of  Jehovah  had  been  felt  in  his  compassion  for  the 
world.  It  was  here  that  Christ  was  crucified,  where 
he  was  buried,  and  where  he  arose  from  the  grave. 
It  was  in  Jerusalem  that  Christ  took  his  ascension 
back  to  the  bosom  of  the  Father.  And  it  was  in 
Jerusalem  that  the  Holy  Spirit  came  upon  the 
apostles,  and  qualified  and  equipped  them  with 
power  to  proclaim  the  gospel  of  Christ,  a  new  dis- 
pensation of  God's  mercy,  to  the  children  of  men. 
It  was  in  Jerusalem  that  so  many  of  the  types 
and  shadows  of  the  Christ  of  God  and  the  New 
Testament  church  were  reflected  on  the  background 
of  Old  Testament  history.  The  apostles  took  the 
first  step  as  set  forth  in  the  outline  given  by  Christ 
in  the  great  commission,  when  the  multitude  cried 
out,  "Brethren,  what  shall  we  do?"  And  Peter, 
the  mouthpiece  through  whom  the  Holy  Spirit 
spake,  said  unto  them :  "Repent  ye,  and  be  baptized, 
every  one  of  you,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 
unto  the  remission  of  your  sins :  and  ye  shall 
receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  .  .  .  They  then 
that  received  his  word   were   baptized:   and   there 


26  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

were  added  unto  them  about  three  thousand  souls." 
The  beginning  was  made,  and  an  entering  wedge 
had  been  driven  that  was  to  rend  the  nations  of 
earth.  Around  this  Httle  center  was  to  revolve  the 
machinery  that  was  soon  to  shake  the  world. 

II.  All  Judaea.  The  apostles  took  the  second 
step  in  the  great  commission  when  "there  arose 
on  that  day  a  great  persecution  against  the  church 
which  was  in  Jerusalem;  and  they  were  all  scat- 
tered abroad  throughout  the  regions  of  Judaea" 
(Acts  8:1).  And  "they  therefore  that  were 
scattered  abroad  went  about  preaching  the  word" 
(Acts  8:4). 

III.  Samaria.  The  apostles  took  the  third  step 
in  the  great  commission  when  "Philip  went  down 
to  the  city  of  Samaria,  and  proclaimed  unto  them 
the  Christ"  (Acts  8:5).  This  was  a  long  stride 
toward  the  goal,  for  who  had  ever  dreamed  before 
that  Jews  should  ever  preach  the  good  news  of 
salvation  to  the  Samaritan  people?  But  it  came 
in  logical  sequence.  The  Samaritans  were  cousins 
to  these  Jewish  evangelists,  they  accepted  the  larger 
portion  of  the  Old  Testament,  they  were  children 
of  Abraham,  and  they  were  rooted  and  grounded 
in  the  promises  of  the  coming  Christ.  But  the  Jews 
had  no  dealings  socially  or  commercially  with  the 
Samaritans.  But  when  the  Christ  came,  he  shared 
his  glorious  ministry  with  them.  And  his  great 
sermon  on  the  Messiah  was  preached  to  a  lone 
Samaritan  woman  at  the  old  well  at  Sychar.  But 
when  his  disciples  came  from  the  city,  and  found 
him  in  conversation  with  the  woman,  "they  mar- 
velled."    But  she  went   with   flying   feet   into  the 


THE  JEW   AND   THE   GREAT   COMMISSION    27 

city,  crying,  "Come,  see  a  man  who  told  me  all 
things  that  ever  I  did :  can  this  be  the  Christ  ?" 
"And  from  that  city  many  of  the  Samaritans 
believed  on  him  because  of  the  word  of  the  woman 
who  testified,  He  told  me  all  things  that  ever  I  did. 
So,  when  the  Samaritans  came  unto  him,  they 
besought  him  to  abide  with  them:  and  he  abode 
there  two  days.  And  many  more  believed  because 
of  his  word;  and  they  said  to  the  woman,  Now 
we  believe,  not  because  of  thy  speaking:  for  we 
have  heard  for  ourselves,  and  know  that  this  is 
indeed  the  Saviour  of  the  world."  Christ  was 
simply  sowing  the  seed  of  the  kingdom  in  Samaria, 
and  soon  Philip  came  to  reap  the  great  harvest. 
What  a  change  had  taken  place  in  those  few  years. 
Jews  and  Samaritans  found  that  they  were  brethren 
in  Christ. 

IV.  The  Uttermost  Part  of  the  Earth. 
Then,  under  the  splendid  leadership  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus,  the  Jewish  evangelists  entered  the  last 
great  lap  in  the  line  of  march  as  set  forth  by 
Christ,  "to  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth,"  and 
we  are  to  finish  it  some  day.  Paul  received  his 
marching  orders  from  the  Christ  himself.  "He  is  a 
chosen  vessel  unto  me,  to  bear  my  name  before  the 
Gentiles  and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Israel." 
Jews  may  turn  away  from  Christ,  but  Christ  still 
clings  to  them.  Then  the  Holy  Spirit  said  to  the 
church  at  Antioch:  "Separate  me  Barnabas  and 
Saul  for  the  work  whereunto  I  have  called  them. 
Then,  when  they  had  fasted,  and  prayed,  and  laid 
their  hands  on  them,  they  sent  them  away." 

We  then  watch  the  beacon-lights  of  Christianity 


28  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

flash  from  Antioch  to  Cypress,  then  to  Perga,  then 
to  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  then  to  Iconium,  then  to 
Lystra,  then  to  Derbe,  then  over  all  the  region  of 
western  Asia  Minor  to  Troas.  Then  from  Troas 
they  flash  to  Philippi,  then  to  Thessalonica,  then  to 
Berea,  then  to  Athens,  then  to  Corinth,  then  to 
Ephesus,  then  to  Jerusalem,  and  from  Jerusalem 
to  Rome. 

The  first  twelve  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Acts 
cover  the  first  three  steps  in  the  great  commission — 
Jerusalem,  Judaea,  and  Samaria.  The  last  sixteen 
chapters  relate  the  thrilling  story  of  the  beginning 
that  was  made  in  the  last  step  in  the  great  com- 
mission. The  first  twelve  chapters  cover  home  mis- 
sions; the  last  sixteen  chapters  cover  foreign 
missions.  The  first  twelve  chapters  are  distinctively 
Jewish;  the  last  sixteen  chapters  are  distinctively 
Gentile.  Paul  could  say  with  great  joy  at  the  end 
of  his  life  of  missionary  labors :  "Without  con- 
troversy great  is  the  mystery  of  godliness ;  he 
who  was  manifested  in  the  flesh,  justified  in  the 
spirit,  seen  of  angels,  preached  among  the  nations, 
believed  on  in  the  world,  received  up  in  glory." 

The  territory  covered  in  this  half  century  of 
missionary  labors  embraced  the  vast  regions  from 
Cyrene  and  Ethiopia  on  the  south  to  the  Alps 
Mountains  on  the  north ;  and  from  the  Euphrates 
River  on  the  east  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  on  the 
west.  The  gospel  of  Christ  had  been  preached 
throughout  the  Roman  Empire  before  the  close  of 
the  first  century.  And  it  is  well  worth  remember- 
ing that  this  stupendous  task  was  accomplished 
through  the  labors  of  Jewish  evangelists. 


III. 

The  Cost. 

As  we  enter  fully  and  freely  into  the  study  of 
the  relationship  which  the  Jew  sustained  to  the 
commission  of  our  Lord,  and  the  marvelous  results 
attained  through  his  zeal  and  courage  as  he  labored 
under  that  great  commission,  it  is  well  worth  while 
to  consider  at  what  a  cost  he  bequeathed  this 
legacy  to  us.  The  enormous  sacrifices  of  devout 
Jews  for  the  cause  of  Christianity  in  the  world 
reach  back  to  the  time  when  the  Master  called 
to  the  fishermen  on  Galilee,  "Come,  follow  me," 
and  "they  left  all  to  follow  him."  Later  on  in 
the  ministry  of  Christ,  Peter  raised  the  question, 
"Lo,  we  have  left  all,  and  have  followed  thee." 

And  Christ  warned  them  of  the  cost.  "But  all 
these  things  are  the  beginning  of  travail.  Then 
shall  they  deliver  you  up  unto  tribulation,  and  shall 
kill  you :  and  ye  shall  be  hated  of  all  the  nations 
for  my  name's  sake."  "But  take  ye  heed  to  your- 
selves :  for  they  shall  deliver  you  up  to  councils ; 
and  in  synagogues  shall  ye  be  beaten ;  and  before 
governors  and  kings  shall  ye  stand  for  my  sake 
for  a  testimony  unto  them."  "And  ye  shall  be 
hated  of  all  men  for  my  name's  sake :  but  he  that 
endureth  lo  the  end,  the  same  shall  be  saved." 
"They   shall   put  you   out   of   the   synagogue :   yea, 

29 


30  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

the  hour  cometh,  that  whosoever  killeth  you  shall 
think  that  he  offereth  service  unto  God.  And  these 
things  will  they  do  because  they  nave  not  known 
the  Father  nor  me."  "But  ye  shall  be  delivered 
up  even  by  parents,  and  brethren,  and  kinsfolk, 
and  friends;  and  some  of  you  shall  they  cause 
to  be  put  to  death.  And  ye  shall  be  hated  of  all 
men  for  my  name's  sake."  And  yet,  in  the  face 
of  all  these  warnings  of  pain,  and  affliction,  and 
hatred,  and  persecution,  and  death,  they  said,  "Let 
us  also  go,  that  we  may  die  with  him."  And  Peter 
exclaimed,  "Lord,  with  thee  I  am  ready  to  go  both 
to  prison  and  unto  death." 

And  what  was  their  earthly  reward  for  preach- 
ing the  gospel  of  love  and  salvation  to  the  world? 
Every  warning  of  Christ  of  the  cost  of  preaching 
his  gospel  was  actually  fulfilled.  The  Master  simply 
gave  them  an  inventory  of  the  trials  and  tribula- 
tions that  would  come  upon  them,  and  not  one 
single  item  was  omitted  by  the  paymaster — the 
world.  The  time  came  when  they  were  hated  of 
all  the  nations  for  his  name's  sake;  when  they  were 
delivered  up  to  councils;  when  they  were  beaten 
in  the  synagogues;  when  they  were  led  before 
kings  and  princes ;  when  those  who  actually  put 
them  to  death  thought  that  they  were  doing  God 
service;  when  they  were  disowned  by  friends  and 
families. 

While  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  tells  but  little 
of  the  abuse,  and  hatred,  and  contempt  that  the 
world  heaped  upon  them,  legendary  history  throws 
some  light  on  the  dark  picture  in  the  end.  Simon 
Peter  was  crucified  head  downward  in  the  city  of 


THE   COST  31 

Rome;  Andrew  was  crucified  on  St.  Andrew's 
cross;  James  the  Elder  was  beheaded  in  Jerusalem 
by  Herod;  John  was  banished  to  the  Isle  of  Patmos 
in  the  eastern  Mediterranean  Sea;  James  the  Less 
was  crucified  in  Egypt,  or  was  thrown  from  a  high 
pinnacle;  Jude  was  martyred  in  Persia;  Philip 
suffered  martyrdom  in  Hierapolis  in  Phrygia; 
Bartholomew  was  flayed  to  death ;  Matthew  suif ered 
martyrdom  in  Ethiopia;  Thomas  was  shot  to  death 
by  arrows  while  at  prayer;  Simon  the  Zelote  was 
crucified;  Judas  committed  suicide. 

However  true  or  untrue  this  legendary  history 
may  be,  there  is  a  source  from  which  we  draw  a 
truthful  story  of  the  trials  and  tribulations  of  those 
who  said,  "Let  us  also  go,  that  we  may  die  with 
him."  Through  Luke's  historic  narrative  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  through  the  Epistles  to 
the  churches,  we  can  see  something  of  the  fearful 
cost  of  preaching  Christ  to  the  world.  Let  us  hear 
the  testimony  of  men  who  were  warned  of  the 
fearful  cost  of  preaching  the  gospel  in  the  world, 
and  yet  who  went  undaunted  to  the  task.  As  the 
world  made  its  contribution  to  the  fearful  catalogue 
of  things  that  Christ  had  foretold  should  come 
upon  them,  we  read :  "Whether  it  is  right  in  the 
sight  of  God  to  hearken  unto  you  rather  than  unto 
God,  judge  ye:  for  we  cannot  but  speak  the  things 
which  we  saw  and  heard."  "They  therefore 
departed  from  the  presence  of  the  council,  rejoicing 
that  they  were  counted  worthy  to  suflfer  dishonor 
for  the  Name." 

Paul  said:  "We  are  fools  for  Christ's  sake,  but 
ye  are  wise  in   Christ:   we   are  weak,  but   ye  are 


12  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

strong;  ye  have  glory,  but  we  have  dishonor. 
Even  unto  this  present  hour  we  both  hunger,  and 
thirst,  and  are  naked,  and  are  buffeted,  and  have 
no  certain  dwelling-place;  and  we  toil,  working 
with  our  own  hands;  being  reviled,  we  bless;  being 
persecuted,  we  endure;  being  defamed,  we  entreat: 
we  are  made  as  the  filth  of  the  world,  the  off- 
scouring  of  all  things,  even  until  now." 

Paul  said,  "After  the  manner  of  men  I  fought 
with  beasts  at  Ephesus."  Oh,  what  would  the 
world  give  for  a  look  into  the  amphitheater  at 
Ephesus,  to  see  the  tragedy  enacted  there!  Oh, 
what  would  the  world  give  if  Luke  or  Paul  had 
only  told  us  the  circumstances  that  threw  him  to 
the  wild  lions  or  tigers  in  the  arena,  while  the  mob 
yelled  with  brutal  glee  at  the  conflict!  Only  eleven 
words  are  written  in  description  of  the  scene,  yet 
they  are  words  that  are  fraught  with  tremendous 
significance. 

Paul  said :  "Even  as  it  is  written.  For  thy  sake 
we  are  killed  all  the  day  long;  we  were  accounted 
as  sheep  for  the  slaughter."  "And  now,  behold,  I 
go  bound  in  the  spirit  unto  Jerusalem,  not  knowing 
the  things  that  shall  befall  me  there:  save  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  testifieth  unto  me  in  every  city,  say- 
ing that  bonds  and  afflictions  abide  me.  But  I 
hold  not  my  life  of  any  account  as  dear  unto 
myself,  so  that  I  may  accomplish  my  course,  and 
the  ministry  which  I  received  from  the  Lord  Jesus, 
to  testify  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God."  "How- 
beit  what  things  were  gain  to  me,  these  have  I 
counted  loss  for  Christ.  Yea,  verily,  I  count  all 
things  to  be  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowl- 


THE  COST  33 

edge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord:  for  whom  I  have 
suffered  the  loss  of  all  things,  and  do  count  them 
but  refuse,  that  I  may  gain  Christ." 

Paul  said:  "Of  the  Jews  five  times  received  I 
forty  stripes  save  one.  Thrice  was  I  beaten  with 
rods,  once  was  I  stoned,  thrice  I  suffered  ship- 
wreck, a  night  and  a  day  have  I  been  in  the  deep; 
in  journeyings  often,  in  perils  of  rivers,  in  perils 
of  robbers,  in  perils  from  my  countrymen,  in  perils 
from  the  Gentiles,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in  perils  in 
the  wilderness,  in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils  among 
false  brethren:  in  labor  and  travail,  in  watchings 
often,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  fastings  often,  in 
cold   and    nakedness." 

Peter  declared :  "But  if  a  man  suffer  as  a  Chris- 
tian, let  him  not  be  ashamed;  but  let  him  glorify 
God  in  this  name."  "If  ye  be  reproached  for  the 
name  of  Christ,  blessed  are  ye;  for  the  spirit  of 
glory  and  of  God  resteth  upon  you :  on  their  part  he 
is  evil  spoken  of,  but  on  your  part  he  is  glorified." 
"Beloved,  think  it  not  strange  concerning  the  fiery 
trial  among  you,  which  cometh  upon  you  to  prove 
you,  as  though  a  strange  thing  happened  unto  you." 

Every  Jewish  evangelist  and  apostle  were  ground 
to  pieces  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones 
of  the  world's  hatred  and  contempt  for  the  meek 
and  lowly  Nazarene  and  his  message.  Nor  is  the 
way  any  smoother  for  the  Jewish  evangelist  and 
disciple  to-day.  Let  a  Jew  accept  Jesus  Christ,  and 
he  is  immediately  disowned  by  family  and  friends, 
distrusted  by  Gentiles,  and  boycotted  by  the  world. 

Christianity  is  made  too  cheap  for  some  of  us 
to-day.      We    give    up    nothing    to    obtain    it,    we 

3 


34  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

sacrifice  nothing  for  it,  we  undergo  no  hardships 
to  promulgate  it  to  the  world.  If  it  should  cost 
us  one-hundredth  part  of  what  it  cost  the  early 
disciples,  there  are  a  good  many  millions  of  us 
who  now  claim  to  be  followers  of  Christ  who  would 
turn  our  faces  away  and  reject  him.  And  if  it  cost 
the  preachers  of  this  Christian  land  a  thousandth 
part  of  what  it  cost  the  Jewish  evangelists  who  first 
proclaimed  Christ  to  the  world,  several  thousands 
of  us  would  find  that  our  health  would  not  permit 
us  to  remain  in  the  ministry.  Worldliness  in  the 
church  has  so  cheapened  Christianity  that  the  church 
is  crippled  and  shorn  of  her  power  by  this  horde 
of  unregenerated  pagans.  But  for  a  Jew,  then 
and  now,  it  meant,  and  means  still,  the  sacrifice 
of  the  things  that  are  most  precious  in  the  world 
— home,   friends,   and  even  life. 

But  let  us  stand  with  John  on  Patmos,  and  have 
him  draw  aside  the  curtain  of  God's  glorious  and 
eternal  world,  and  show  us  the  fruitage  of  the 
age  of  martyrs  for  Christ.  Jewish  evangelists 
sowed  the  fields  with  the  good  seed  of  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven,  and  the  earth  yielded  her  golden 
harvest,  and  hatred  and  bigotry  reaped  it  with 
her  sickle  keen.  It  has  been  asserted  that  fifty 
million  martyrs  perished  for  their  faith  in  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  John  wrote:  "I  saw  the 
souls  of  them  that  had  been  beheaded  for  the  tes- 
timony of  Jesus  and  for  the  word  of  God."  "And 
one  of  the  elders  answered,  saying  unto  me.  These 
that  are  arrayed  in  white  robes,  who  are  they, 
and  whence  came  they?  And  I  say  unto  him,  My 
lord,  thou  knowest.     And  he  said  unto  me,  These 


THE   COST  35 

are  they  that  came  out  of  the  great  tribulation,  and 
they  washed  their  robes,  and  made  them  white  in 
the  blood  of  the  Lamb.  Therefore  are  they  before 
the  throne  of  God;  and  they  serve  him  day  and 
night  in  his  temple:  and  he  that  sitteth  on  the 
throne  shall  spread  his  tabernacle  over  them.  They 
shall  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any  more; 
neither  shall  the  sun  strike  upon  them,  nor  any 
heat:  for  the  Lamb  that  is  in  the  midst  of  the 
throne  shall  be  their  Shepherd,  and  shall  guide  them 
unto  fountains  of  waters  of  life:  and  God  shall 
wipe  away  every  tear  from  their  eyes." 

Ah !  who  were  they  ?  Many  of  them,  doubtless 
most  of  them,  were  Jewish  martyrs  to  their  faith 
in  Christ,  for  the  flaming  red  banner  of  persecu- 
tion had  not  been  unfurled  at  large  over  the  Gentile 
nations  at  the  time  when  John  wrote  of  this  vision. 
How  many  of  the  apostles,  and  evangelists,  and 
prophets,  and  elders,  and  deacons  of  the  early 
church  were  in  this  throng!  Paul,  in  writing  to  a 
Gentile  church,  and  enumerating  the  things  which 
he  and  his  colaborers  had  suffered  for  their  faith 
in  Christ,  said,  "I  write  not  these  things  to  shame 
you."  But  how  such  lives  of  sacrifice,  and  patience, 
and  suffering  ought  to  shame  us  who  have  done 
so  little,  and  who  can  bear  so  little  reproach  for 
the  name  of   our  blessed   Lord. 


IV. 

Christianity  and  the  Great  Commission. 

The  commission  which  the  Jew  received  from 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  became  our  commission  when 
we  heard  and  obeyed  the  message  that  was  so 
faithfully  proclaimed  to  the  world  by  these  Jewish 
apostles  and  evangelists.  The  commission  which 
bade  him,  "Go  ye  into  all  the  world,  and  preach  the 
gospel  to  the  whole  creation,"  has  become  our 
divine  marching  orders.  And  the  obligation  is  just 
as  binding  upon  us  to-day  as  it  was  upon  them 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago.  Age  nor  transmission 
from  oine  race  to  another  has  in  nowise  dulled  the 
edge  of  the  sword  of  the  Spirit. 

But  how  faithfully  have  we  obeyed  this  com- 
mission? It  reads  to-day  just  as  it  read  nineteen 
hundred  years  ago.  The  command  of  the  Lord  is 
still:  "Go  ye,  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all 
the  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit: 
teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I 
commanded  you:  and  lo,  I  am  with  you  always, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  The  lines  of 
march  may  be  reversed,  but  the  message  remains 
unchanged.  Age,  nor  progress,  nor  civilization,  nor 
conditions  of  men  have  taken  away  a  single  iota  of 
our  responsibility. 

36 


THE  GREAT   COMMISSION  Z7 

We  stand  at  the  ends  of  the  earth  to-day,  at  the 
last  milestone  in  the  commission  of  our  common 
Lord.  It  may  be  the  providence  of  God  that  we 
are  to  begin  in  this  our  day  to  take  the  reverse 
steps  in  the  great  commission  and  preach  it  back- 
ward to  the  point  of  beginning — the  uttermost  part 
of  the  earth,  then  to  Samaria,  then  over  all  Judaea, 
and  at  last  in  Jerusalem.  For  where  did  Christ 
ever  ordain  that  his  gospel  should  cease  to  be 
preached  in  Samaria,  or  Judaea,  or  Jerusalem? 
Did  Christianity's  obligations  cease  when  the  people 
of  Jerusalem,  and  Judaea,  and  Samaria  were  scat- 
tered among  the  nations  of  the  earth?  We  are 
preaching  Christ  in  Jerusalem  when  we  preach 
him  to  the  people  of  Jerusalem  wherever  they  may 
be  found  to-day.  While  the  chosen  people  of  God 
are  not  in  the  land  of  their  fathers,  they  are  in 
the  land  of  our  fathers,  and  wherever  they  are, 
in  Europe,  Asia,  Africa,  America,  or  the  islands 
of  the  sea,  there  is  our  obligation  also. 

Paul  holds  us  fast  to  the  issue.  "So  all  Israel 
shall  be  saved."  But  where?  Not  in  Jerusalem, 
for  they  are  not  there.  Not  in  Judaea,  for  Israel 
is  not  there.  Where  then?  "Brethren,  my  heart's 
desire  and  my  supplication  to  God  is  for  them, 
that  they  may  be  saved."  "For  there  is  no  distinc- 
tion between  the  Jew  and  the  Greek:  for  the  same 
Lord  is  Lord  of  all,  and  is  rich  unto  all  who  call 
upon  him.  For  whosoever  shall  call  upon  the 
name  of  the  Lord  shall  be  saved." 

The  history  of  the  church  through  these  past 
centuries  may  be  written  in  the  heartbeat  of  mis- 
sions.    Nothing  else  was  worth  writing  during  the 


38  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

history  of  the  church  of  the  first  century.  And 
nothing  else  is  worth  writing  now.  If  the  church 
is  not  reaching  out  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  Hft 
up  all  races  of  men,  then  she  has  nothing  to  write. 
If  the  corporate  life  of  the  church  consists  only 
of  suppers,  and  bazars,  and  euchre  parties,  and 
picnics,  and  shows,  and  entertainments,  then  let 
us  draw  the  curtain  over  her  shame.  The  wise 
man  of  old  said,  "Where  there  is  no  vision,  the 
people  cast  off  restraint."  This  is  as  true  in  the 
life  of  the  church  as  it  is  in  the  life  of  the  individ- 
ual. Churches  are  dying  every  day  because  they 
have  no  vision,  they  never  see  beyond  the  little 
hamlet  where  the  church  stands,  they  think  only 
in  terms  of  the  locality  in  which  the  church  stands, 
they  aim  only  to  reach  the  community  around 
them.  Such  churches  have  nothing  to  write  in  the 
glorious  achievements  of  Christianity  in  the  world. 

Each  age  and  generation  has  witnessed  some 
great  missionary  achievement  of  the  church,  as 
Spirit-filled  men  caught  the  vision  of  world-wide 
evangelization  for  Christ.  And  standing  promi- 
nently in  the  forefront  of  the  church's  advance, 
like  a  captain  before  his  host,  leading  them  on  to 
victory,  may  be  seen  a  score  of  great  missionary 
leaders,  worthy  successors  of  Paul,  and  Silas,  and 
Philip,  and  Barnabas. 

To  the  Goths  went  forth  Ulfilas,  just  as  Philip 
went  down  to  Samaria,  "and  proclaimed  unto  them 
the  Christ."  To  Armenia  went  forth  Gregory;  to 
France  went  forth  Pothinus;  to  Ireland  went  forth 
St.  Patrick;  to  Scotland  went  forth  Columba;  to 
England   went    forth    St.    Augustine;   to    Germany 


THE  GREAT   COMMISSION  39 

went  forth  Boniface;  to  Denmark,  Anaskar;  to 
the  American  Indians  went  forth  John  Eliot;  to 
India  went  forth  WilHam  Carey;  to  Africa  went 
forth  David  Livingstone;  to  China  went  forth  Rob- 
ert Morrison;  to  Japan  went  forth  St.  Xavier;  to 
the  Hebride  Islands  went  forth  John  Paton;  to 
Samoa  went  forth  John  Williams;  to  Formosa 
went  forth  Mackay;  to  New  Zealand  went  forth 
Karl  Ritter. 

But  where  is  the  great  missionary  leader  who 
has  gone  forth  during  the  past  eighteen  centuries 
to  the  "lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel"?  We 
look  in  vain  for  him,  we  listen  in  vain  for  his 
message.  We  have  sent  forth  the  missionaries  by 
the  score  to  the  dark  continent  of  Africa,  and  all 
Christendom  rejoices  in  the  bountiful  harvest  that 
has  been  gathered  in.  We  have  sent  forth  the 
missionaries  by  the  score  to  China  and  Japan,  and 
we  have  watched  the  light  break  in  these  darkened 
lands.  We  have  sent  forth  the  missionaries  to 
India,  to  Korea,  to  Thibet,  to  Manchuria,  to 
Madagascar,  to  Turkey,  to  Armenia,  to  Arabia, 
to  Cuba,  to  Porto  Rico,  to  the  Philippines,  to  South 
America,  to  the  islands  of  the  seas,  and  everywhere 
that  humanity  is  found  to-day.  And  we  are 
preaching  the  gospel  to  almost  every  tongue  and 
dialect,  to  almost  every  tribe  and  family  of  earth, 
but  there  has  been  no  gospel  for  the  Jews. 

And  here  in  our  own  free  America,  America 
ordained  of  God  to  save  the  world,  the  Church  of 
Jesus  Christ  stands  at  every  open  port  to  meet 
and  to  greet  the  great  incoming  flood-tide  of 
immigrant  strangers  that  are  pouring  through  our 


40  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

gates  in  search  of  homes,  bread,  Hberty,  and  hope. 
And  to  this  vast  host,  the  church  extends  a  greet- 
ing and  a  welcome  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Missions  are  opened  for  them,  the  Bible  is  reached 
out  to  all  of  them,  save  the  Jew.  Of  all  the 
nationalities  who  are  pressing  through  our  open 
doors,  none  are  more  desirable  as  citizens  of  this 
great,  free  America  than  the  Jews.  And  yet  we 
treat  them  as  though  they  were  the  scum  of  the 
earth.  Has  he  no  soul  to  be  saved?  Possibly  he 
could  teach  us  more  about  God  than  some  of  us 
know.  We,  the  Gentile  nations,  have  been  his 
pupils  to  whom  he  taught  the  existence  of  God — 
do  the  pupils  excel  their  masters  in  knowledge? 

To-day  we  have  hung  a  girdle  of  gospel  bells 
around  the  earth,  but  none  of  them  ring  out  their 
welcome  and  invitation  to  the  Jew.  We  have 
translated  the  gospel  message  into  almost  every 
dialect  known  in  the  world,  but  so  little  for  the 
Jew.  We  pray  for  every  tribe  and  family  of  earth, 
that  they  may  know  the  fulness  of  the  love  of 
Christ  that  passeth  all  understanding,  but  no  voice 
is  lifted  up  in  earnest  supplication  with  Paul's, 
"My  heart's  desire  and  my  supplication  to  God  is 
for  them  [Israel],  that  they  may  be  saved."  Truly 
the  Jew  can  say,  "No  man  careth  for  my  soul !" 
Why  this  neglect?  Why  this  unpardonable  and 
shameless  discrimination?  The  answer  is  writ  in 
letters  large  enough  to  be  read  the  world  over — 

"INGRATITUDE  AND  BIGOTRY" 

In  bringing  this  indictment  of  high  treason 
against  heaven  and  treachery  to  the  Jew,  we   are 


THE  GREAT   COMMISSION  41 

fully  conscious  of  the  fact  that  many  attempts  at 
justification  will  be  made.  As  of  old,  "they  all 
with  one  consent  began  to  make  excuse."  Some 
would  say,  "The  Jew  does  not  want  the  gospel!" 
When  fully  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  the  Jews  of  the 
world  are  as  ignorant  of  Christianity  as  are  the 
Mohammedans,  having  no  New  Testament  in  their 
own  language,  and  possessing  nothing  but  tradi- 
tional history  concerning  Jesus  Christ,  and  that 
warped  and  distorted  in  justification  of  his  cruci- 
fixion, how  do  they  know  whether  or  not  they 
desire  Christianity?  The  Christ  of  history  and  the 
Christ  of  Jewish  tradition  are  two  different  char- 
acters. If  they  could  know  Christ  as  he  actually 
lived,  and  taught,  and  suffered,  it  would  completely 
change  their  viewpoint.  While  they  gave  birth 
to  the  Christ  and  his  religion,  the  average  Jew  in 
the  world  is  as  ignorant  of  the  actual  facts  to-day 
as  if  Christ  had  been  born  in  India.  And  the  best 
that  the  Christian  nations  have  done  for  him 
through  all  these  centuries  has  been  to  plunder, 
and  rob,  and  persecute  him  in  the  name  of  religion. 
Who  would  want  Christianity  on  those  terms? 

Possibly  they  do  not  desire  Christianity.  Neither 
do  the  Mohammedans,  neither  do  the  people  of 
India,  neither  do  the  people  of  China.  It  is  only 
as  we  reach  the  devotees  of  these  great  heathen 
religions,  one  at  a  time,  and  acquaint  them  with 
the  beauty,  and  peace,  and  holiness  of  Christ,  does 
Christianity  become  desirable  to  them.  The  great 
masses  of  people  in  heathen  lands  to-day  do  not 
want  the  gospel  because  they  are  satisfied  with  what 
they  have.    And  only  when  they  become  acquainted 


42  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

with  Christianity,  and  contrast  their  own  hollow 
and  empty  religious  forms  with  the  beauty  and 
holiness  of  Christ,  can  we  hope  to  lead  them  away 
from  their  superstition  and  fear. 

And  the  missionary  who  sends  back  a  message 
from  the  heathen  fields  that  the  people  are  begging 
for  the  gospel,  sadly  misrepresents  the  facts.  The 
masses  are  totally  ignorant  of  Christ,  and  how  can 
they  desire  that  of  which  they  are  totally  ignorant? 
It  has  never  been,  nor  is  it  now,  true  that  the 
masses  of  heathenism  are  begging  for  the  gospel 
message. 

Take  it  in  our  own  land  of  gospel  privileges, 
where  Christ  has  been  preached  for  generation  after 
generation,  and  where  the  rich  fruitage  of  Chris- 
tianity is  ripest,  where  the  monuments  of  Chris- 
tianity stand  everywhere  as  a  glorious  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  the  masses  of 
unbelievers  are  not  even  calling  for  the  gospel  to 
be  preached  unto  them.  There  are  millions  of  men 
and  women  in  our  own  land  who  live  within  hear- 
ing distance  of  the  church  bells,  who  are  in  seeing 
distance  of  the  light  of  Christianity,  and  who  are 
in  touching  distance  of  her  helping  hand,  who  will 
neither  hear,  nor  see,  nor  touch  the  Christ  of  God. 
They  are  willing  to  accept  the  charities  of  the 
church,  but  they  refuse  to  accept  the  Christ.  They 
can  witness  every  day  the  power  of  the  gospel 
to  change  men's  lives;  they  are  unwilling  to  have 
their  own  lives  changed.  All  over  this  land  "The 
Spirit  and  the  Bride"  are  calling  to  the  masses  of 
unsaved  men,  "Come,"  but  they  spurn  the  gospel 
call  and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  gospel  message.    The 


THE  GREAT   COMMISSION  43 

man  who  can  justify  himself  in  his  hostility  to  the 
Jew,  and  his  failure  to  preach  unto  him  Jesus, 
simply  because  the  Jew  does  not  desire  Christian- 
ity, can  justify  almost  anything  else  in  the  world. 
And  reasoning  from  this  hypothesis,-  "That  the 
Jews  do  not  desire  the  gospel,"  we  would  have 
to  close  our  ears  and  our  hearts  against  every  other 
heathen  race  in  the  world  for  the  very  same  reason. 
China,  and  Japan,  and  India,  and  Africa,  and  the 
cannibal  islands  of  the  sea  have  slaughtered  our 
missionaries  because  they  did  not  desire  Christian- 
ity, but  we  sent  others  to  take  their  places.  And 
thus,  almost  every  heathen  land  in  the  world  has 
been  sanctified  by  the  blood  of  men  and  women 
who  feared  God  more  than  men. 

But  some  will  say,  "But  the  Jew  will  not  hear 
the  gospel."  But  he  will  hear  it  if  it  is  preached 
in  love.  He  is  hearing  and  obeying  it  to-day  in 
many  quarters  of  the  globe  where  Christians  pos- 
sess a  sufficient  measure  of  the  love  of  Christ  to 
preach  it  to  them.  The  Jewish  mind  and  heart  is 
in  a  more  receptive  state  to-day  than  at  any  time 
since  the  days  of  the  apostles.  They  are  slowly 
yielding  to  the  gospel  message,  and  with  a  united 
effort,  and  faith,  and  prayer  of  Christendom,  Paul's 
prayer,  that  "Israel  might  be  saved,"  will  some  day 
be  answered.  We  find  not  only  races  of  men, 
but  individuals  by  thousands,  right  in  our  midst  who 
manifest  an  open  hostility  to  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
and  yet  we  are  striving  to  reach  them  with  the 
very  gospel  that  they  despise.  And  this  is  why 
the  church  stands  in  the  world  to-day.  And  when 
these  conditions  that   surround  us  on   every  hand 


44  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

are  passed  away,  then  the  mission  of  the  church 
in  the  world  will  be  complete.  By  what  process 
of  logical  reasoning  can  we  justify  our  failure  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  the  Jews? 

But  the  Jew  of  our  land,  and  of  every  land, 
will  hear  the  gospel  if  it  is  presented  to  them  in 
love  and  patience.  But  he  will  not  hear  it  any 
other  way,  nor  would  it  be  the  gospel  of  Christ 
if  it  were  presented  in  any  other  way.  It  is  our 
firm  conviction  that  if  Christianity  would  give  her- 
self in  the  fullest  possible  measure  of  love,  and 
prayer,  and  consecration  to  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ  to  the  Jews  for  ten  years,  and  with 
the  same  devotion  that  we  are  preaching  the  gospel 
to  other  heathen  races  in  our  midst  and  in  the 
heathen  lands,  there  is  no  field  in  all  the  world 
that  will  yield  such  glorious  results.  And  the  his- 
tory of  the  church  for  the  past  nineteen  hundred 
years  is  a  sufficient  verification  of  the  loyalty  and 
zeal  of  Hebrews  when  once  they  accept  Christ  as 
their  Lord  and  Saviour.  A  hundred  thousand 
Christianized  Jews  would  shake  the  world  for 
Christ  again,  just  as  they  shook  it  with  their  mes- 
sage in  the  beginning.  The  church  is  neglecting 
her  greatest  and  most  powerful  asset  in  the  evan- 
gelization of  the  world  for  Christ — the  Jews. 


V. 

Christianity's  Debt  to  the  Jews. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  of  this  humble  work, 
we  endeavored  to  set  forth  the  relationship  that  the 
Jews  sustained  to  the  commission  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ;  also  the  relationship  that  the 
Christian  world  now  sustains  to  the  Jews  because  of 
the  commission  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ.  Now  we  shall  endeavor  to  set  forth  some 
great  reasons  growing  out  of  these  relationships  why 
Christianity  should  preach  the  gospel  to  the  Jews 
who  are  scattered  among  the  Christian  nations. 

The  great  commission  for  the  universal  proc- 
lamation of  the  gospel  to  the  whole  creation  is  laid 
deep  in  the  heart  of  Jesus.  From  this  commission 
there  is  no  appeal.  But  there  are  some  great  sec- 
ondary reasons  why  Christianity  should  manifest  a 
friendlier  interest  and  a  deeper  sympathy  for  this 
neglected  and  mistreated  people.  Either  the  Jews 
are  the  most  undeserving  race  of  men  in  the  world, 
or  we  are  the  most  ungrateful.  The  Jew  has  done 
more  to  build  Christianity  upon  her  firm  basis  in 
the  world  than  all  other  races  of  men  combined. 
And  were  the  gospel  of  Christ  human  and  not 
divine,  the  blessings  which  it  has  brought  to  the 
world  would  be  sufficient  alone  to  make  all  nations 
debtors  to  the  Jew. 

45 


46  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

Frederick  the  Great  once  demanded  of  his  chan- 
cellor proof  for  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and  the 
statesman  replied,  "The  Jew,  the  Jew!"  In  the 
freat  ebb  and  flow  of  the  world's  national  life,  five 
hundred  petty  kingdoms  and  empires  have  been 
swallowed  up  in  the  merciless  strife  among  men. 
And  yet,  amid  all  this  crushing  and  rending  of 
empires,  the  sway  of  principalities,  and  the  over- 
throw of  dynasties,  the  Jew  has  retained  his  iden- 
tity. He  is  the  most  interesting  man  in  all  the 
world  to-day,  because  he  has  the  greatest  history  of 
any  man  in  the  world.  He  has  never  changed  his 
faith,  he  has  never  changed  his  creed,  he  has  never 
turned  his  face  away  from  his  ancient  ideal.  From 
the  day  when  God  called  Abraham  out  of  Chaldaea, 
and  told  him  to  journey  to  the  westward  to  the 
land  which  he  would  show  him,  "and  he  went  out, 
not  knowing  whither  he  went  .  .  .  for  he  looked  for 
the  city  which  hath  the  foundations,  whose  builder 
and  maker  is  God,"  to  this  day,  the  history  of  the 
Jew  reads  like  a  romance.  And  while  the  Jew  has 
spent  most  of  the  centuries  a  wanderer  in  a  strange 
land,  yet  he  has  always  kept  his  windows  open 
toward  Jerusalem.  Through  man's  inhumanity  to 
man  he  has  been  kept  from  living  in  his  beloved 
city,  yet  no  power  of  earth  has  been  sufficient  to 
keep  him  from  praying  toward  his  beloved  city. 

God  promised  Abraham  that  his  seed  should  be 
as  the  sands  of  the  sea,  and  as  the  stars  of  the 
heaven  for  a  multitude.  And  to-day,  amid  all  their 
vicissitudes,  amid  all  their  great,  overwhelming 
national  disasters,  amid  all  their  strife  and  slaugh- 
ter, they  are  as  the  sands  of  the  sea  and  the  stars 


CHRISTIANITY'S   DEBT   TO   THE  JEWS        47 

of  the  heaven  for  a  multitude.  And  yet,  like  the 
sands  of  the  sea,  the  tides  of  human  destiny  have 
rolled  them  far  from  the  land  of  their  nativity,  and 
have  piled  them  upon  the  shores  of  every  land 
under  the  sun. 

And  God  further  promised  Abraham,  "I  will 
bless  them  that  bless  thee,  and  him  that  curseth  thee 
will  I  curse."  "For  thus  saith  Jehovah  of  hosts : 
After  glory  hath  he  sent  me  unto  the  nations  that 
plundered  you;  for  he  that  toucheth  you  toucheth 
the  apple  of  his  eye."  No  student  can  look  well 
into  the  history  of  the  world  for  the  past  four  thou- 
sand years  and  fail  to  see  there  the  hand  of 
almighty  God  stretched  out  to  defend  and  to  lead 
his  chosen  people,  and  wreaking  vengeance  and 
destruction  upon  the  nations  that  have  dared  to  lay 
a  restraining  hand  upon  them. 

One  of  the  great  proofs  that  there  is  a  God, 
omnipotent  and  powerful,  ruling  the  world,  and 
making  the  nations  of  earth  to  praise  his  name,  is 
the  ever-present  hand  of  God  in  Jewish  history. 
"For  the  kingdom  is  Jehovah's;  and  he  is  the  ruler 
over  the  nations."  "Jehovah  thy  God  shall  cut  off 
the  nations  from  before  thee,  whither  thou  goest  in 
to  dispossess  them."  And  the  whole  history  of 
Israel  throughout  their  eventful  history  is  one  grand 
record  of  God's  protecting  care. 

God  said :  "I  will  overturn,  overturn,  overturn, 
until  he  come  whose  right  it  is:  and  I  will  give  it 
him."  And  through  the  ages  God  has  been  over- 
turning, overturning,  overturning,  as  a  farmer  plows 
his  fields,  turning  under  the  thorns  and  thistles,  and 
sowing  again  the  good  seed  of  the  coming  kingdom. 


48  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE  JEW 

He  has  overthrown  tyrants  and  godless  kings  that 
a  better  race  of  men  might  rule  in  the  world.  The 
valleys  of  the  Nile,  the  Euphrates,  and  the  Tigris, 
the  plains  of  Syria,  Esdraelon,  and  Philistia,  and 
the  plateau  region  of  the  Lebanon  hills  have  been 
God's  great  harvest-fields  that  felt  the  keen  sickle 
of  the  great  Husbandman  of  the  earth,  as  he  made 
room  for  his  chosen  ones. 

God  threw  out  his  battle  lines  to  the  southwest, 
and  Egypt  felt  the  wrath  of  his  power,  but  Israel 
was  there  to  give  God  the  glory.  He  threw  out  his 
battle  lines  to  the  south,  and  Amalek  fell,  but  Moses 
was  there  as  a  witness  for  God.  He  threw  out  his 
battle  lines  to  the  eastward,  and  Nineveh  and 
Babylon  tottered  to  their  ruin,  but  God's  chosen 
people  were  there  as  the  representatives  of  a  race 
of  men  whom  God  had  chosen,  and  to  read  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall  of  the  nations  that  were 
doomed.  God  threw  out  his  battle  lines  to  the 
north,  and  Persia  fell,  but  Esther  and  Mordecai 
were  there  as  silent  witnesses.  He  threw  out  his 
battle  lines  to  the  northwest,  and  Greece  and  Rome 
were  shaken,  but  Jewish  evangelists  were  there  to 
preach  unto  them  Jesus.  And  God  is  still  over- 
turning, overturning,  overturning  the  nations  of  the 
world,  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  may  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

"Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger; 

History's  pages  but  record 
One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness 

' Twixt  old  systems  and  the  Word ; 
Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold, 

Wrong  forever  on  the  throne — 


CHRISTIANITY'S    DEBT   TO    THE   JEWS        49 

Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future, 

And,  behind  the  dim  unknown, 
Standeth  God  within  the  shadow, 

Keeping  watch  above  his  own." 

The  nations  that  surrounded  Israel  at  the  begin- 
ning of  her  history  are  now  buried  beneath  the  rub- 
bish of  centuries  because  of  their  crimes  against 
God's  chosen  nation.  They  are  gone  the  way  of  all 
the  earth,  while  the  nation  that  they  sought  to 
destroy  still  lives.  And  Turkey,  Spain,  Russia  and 
Austria  are  now  reaping  the  harvest  of  retribution, 
and  some  other  nations  are  yet  to  feel  God's  venge- 
ance poured  out  upon  them  for  their  bloody  deeds 
against  the  Jews.  It  may  be  said,  with  no  little 
pride,  that  the  United  States  of  America  is  the 
only  nation  in  the  world  that  has  not  mistreated 
the  Jew. 

God's  covenant  with  Abraham  was,  "In  thee 
shall  all  the  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed."  And 
Peter  takes  up  the  very  same  thought  nineteen  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  later  and  proves  its  complete 
verification  in  Jesus  Christ.  "Ye  are  the  sons  of 
the  prophets,  and  of  the  covenant  which  God  made 
with  your  fathers,  saying  unto  Abraham,  And  in 
thy  seed  shall  all  the  families  of  the  earth  be 
blessed."  If  this  be  true,  and  we  are  constrained 
by  the  overwhelming  testimony  of  the  ages  to 
believe  that  it  is  true,  then,  we  are,  of  all  men,  most 
contemptible  and  mean  if  we  fail  to  recognize  in 
the  Jew  the  fulfillment  of  all  these  promises  of 
God. 

We  are  the  recipients  of  the  richest  legacy  ever 
bequeathed  by  one  nation  to  another.     All  that  we 

4 


50  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

possess  to-day  in  the  realm  of  revealed  religion  has 
come  through  Jewish  channels.  When  Paul  stood 
in  the  midst  of  the  Areopagus  on  Mars'  Hill  in 
Athens,  he  said  to  the  Athenians:  "Ye  men  of 
Athens,  in  all  things  I  perceive  that  ye  are  very 
religious.  For  as  I  passed  along,  and  observed  the 
objects  of  your  worship,  I  found  also  an  altar  with 
this  inscription,  TO  AN  UNKNOWN  GOD. 
What  therefore  ye  worship  in  ignorance,  this  I  set 
forth  unto  you.  The  God  that  made  the  world  and 
all  things  therein,  he,  being  Lord  of  heaven  and 
earth,  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands; 
neither  is  he  served  by  men's  hands,  as  though  he 
needed  anything,  seeing  he  himself  giveth  to  all 
life,  and  breath,  and  all  things;  and  he  made  of 
one  every  nation  of  men  to  dwell  on  all  the  face  of 
the  earth,  having  determined  their  appointed  sea- 
sons, and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation ;  that  they 
should  seek  God,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  him 
and  find  him,  though  he  is  not  far  from  each  one  of 
us:  for  in  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being."  And  here  Paul  clinched  the  argument  by  a 
quotation  from  one  of  their  own  poets,  Aratus,  "For 
we  are  also  his  offspring."  What  was  true  of  the 
men  of  Athens,  has  been  true  of  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth.  The  "UNKNOWN  GOD"  has  been  igno- 
rantly  worshiped  among  the  nations  of  earth 
through  all  the  ages,  but  the  Jew  alone  could 
declare  him  unto  men. 

The  Jew  gave  the  Bible  to  the  world.  Could 
there  be  any  Christ  without  the  Bible?  And  how 
would  you  prove  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God,  but  for  the  Bible?    The  Jew  gave 


CHRISTIANITY'S    DEBT   TO    THE   JEWS        51 

US  the  doctrines  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the 
Lordship  and  Messiahship  of  Christ,  and  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  and  then  he  gave  us  the  proofs 
for  them.  The  Jew  has  never  poured  the  riches  of 
his  legacy  into  any  nation  vv^ithout  blessing  it,  and 
wherever  Christ  and  the  Bible  have  not  gone,  there 
you  will  find  darkness,  and  fear,  and  pitiable  misery. 
The  fullness  of  the  blessing  promised  to  Abra- 
ham came  when  "God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he 
gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth 
on  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life.  For 
God  sent  not  the  Son  into  the  world  to  judge  the 
world;  but  that  the  world  should  be  saved  through 
him."  Recognizing,  therefore,  our  unbounded  debt 
to  the  Jew  for  the  blessings  that  are  the  common 
heritage  of  all  men  to-day,  let  us  make  a  sort  of 
inventory  of  his  gifts  to  the  world.  And  then,  as 
true  and  honorable  Christian  men  and  women,  let  us 
pay  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due,  honor  to  whom 
honor  is  due,  thanksgiving  to  whom  thanksgiving  is 
due. 


VI. 

The  Jew  in  Ancient  History. 

The  Jew  has  a  national  right  to  be  proud  of  his 
history,  for  he  has  been  making  history  longer  than 
any  race  of  men  in  the  world.  A  bigot  sneered 
at  Lord  Beaconsfield  (Disraeli)  when  he  arose  in 
the  English  Parliament  to  make  a  speech.  He 
hurled  the  only  weapon  that  bigotry,  and  intolerance, 
and  race  prejudice  can  use,  by  calling  the  eminent 
statesman  "a  Jew !"  Lord  Beaconsfield  calmly 
replied  to  the  insult:  "Sir,  I  can  well  afford  to  be 
called  a  Jew.  When  your  fathers  were  naked  sav- 
ages in  the  wilds  of  Germany,  my  fathers  wor- 
shiped God  in  a  golden  temple  in  Jerusalem!" 

Long  before  Socrates  taught  philosophy  and 
Herodotus  wrote  history,  the  Jews  were  living  the 
most  sublime  philosophies  and  making  history. 
Long  before  the  Greeks  captured  Troy  by  strategy, 
Joshua  led  the  hosts  of  Israel  around  the  walls  of 
Jericho,  and  watched  them  crumble  before  the 
touch  of  the  hand  of  God.  The  Jews  had  a  civil- 
ization long  before  Greece  and  Rome  had  letters. 
When  poor,  blind  Homer  was  writing  his  immortal 
Iliad  and  Odyssey,  "the  sweet  singer  of  Israel"  was 
writing  his  immortal  Psalms.  Long  before  Bab- 
ylon and  Nineveh  began  to  be  felt  as  world  powers, 
Israel  was  a  mighty  nation,  holding  sway  over  the 

52 


THE  JEW    IN    ANCIENT   HISTORY  53 

vast  region  from  Egypt  on  the  south  to  Phoenicia 
on  the  north,  and  from  the  desert  on  the  east  to  the 
sea  on  the  west.  Long  before  Rome  was  founded 
by  the  Tiber,  Jerusalem  was  a  city  of  great  wealth 
and  culture.  Long  before  the  magnificent  Parthe- 
non was  constructed  on  the  Acropolis  in  Athens, 
King  Solomon  was  constructing  the  temple  of  God 
on  Mount  Moriah  in  Jerusalem. 

When  the  ancestry  of  every  European  king  and 
prince  chased  the  wild  boar  and  fought  the  wild 
savages  of  the  forest,  King  Solomon  sat  upon  an 
ivory  throne,  in  a  golden  temple  in  Jerusalem,  hold- 
ing communion  with  the  great  God  of  the  universe. 
His  counselors  were  the  torch-bearers  of  civiliza- 
tion long  before  Greece  and  Rome  began  to  awaken. 
The  history  of  the  Jew  has  been  interwoven  with  the 
history  of  the  world  for  nearly  four  thousand  years. 

They  saw  Egypt  rise  and  fall  like  a  giant.  They 
saw  Nineveh  and  Babylon  totter  to  their  ruin.  They 
saw  Edom  and  Moab,  Philistia,  and  Tyre  and 
Sidon  buried  beneath  the  rubbish  of  the  centuries. 
They  saw  Greece  and  Rome  loom  up  on  the  west- 
ern horizon,  they  heard  the  thunder  of  the  distant 
conflict  between  Greece  and  Persia,  between  Rome 
and  Carthage,  and  they  themselves  soon  felt  the 
hot  breath  from  the  nostrils  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  cavalry  on  the  Esdraelon.  They  heard  the 
crash  and  roar  of  battle  at  Marathon,  Thermopy- 
lae, Salamis,  Plataea,  Chseronea,  Issus,  and  Arbela. 
They  watched,  as  it  were  from  afar,  the  ever- 
changing  kaleidoscopic  figures  of  nation  arrayed 
against  nation  in  the  death-grapple  for  power  and 
spoil. 


54  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

Nor  did  the  Jew  come  out  of  this  irrepressible 
conflict  unscarred.  Like  the  Greek,  the  Jew  could 
not  keep  out  of  a  fight.  Through  their  warlike 
temperament  and  training  they  became  a  world 
power,  and  then  it  took  the  best  blood  of  the  nation 
to  maintain  that  power.  Nations  pressed  them  in  on 
every  side,  and  with  internal  strife  that  rent  the 
nation  into  shreds,  and  with  the  ever-rising  tide  of 
Nineveh,  Babylon,  Syria,  Persia,  Greece,  and  Rome 
pressing  them  in  at  every  angle,  the  Jewish  mon- 
archy soon  fell  to  pieces.  Then  ten  tribes  were 
carried  away  into  captivity  in  Nineveh,  followed 
soon  by  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the  seventy  years 
of  captivity  of  the  tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  in 
Babylon.  The  remnant  of  the  tribes  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin  returned  from  Babylon  to  rebuild  the 
city  of  David,  but  the  glory  of  the  kingdom  had 
passed  away  forever.  The  Jews  withstood  the 
Greeks  for  a  little  while,  but  at  last  their  temple 
was  desecrated  and  despoiled.  Then  they  felt  the 
hot  breath  from  the  nostrils  of  the  Roman  cavalry, 
and  the  Jewish  nation  was  soon  prostrated  at  the 
feet  of  the  proud  mistress  of  the  world  whose 
throne  was  in  the  city  by  the  Tiber. 

Through  their  great  oppression  and  unbearable 
wrongs  at  home,  pillaged  and  plundered  by  nation 
after  nation,  their  temple  desecrated,  their  old  relig- 
ious rites  and  ceremonies  mocked  by  Gentiles,  with 
Gentile  garrisons  stationed  at  every  crucial  point  in 
the  kingdom  to  oppress  and  enslave  them,  there 
came  the  migration  of  the  Jewish  people,  when  they 
were  soon  scattered  like  dust  among  the  nations  of 
the  world.     Thus,  in  God's  own  good  providence, 


THE  JEW   IN    ANCIENT   HISTORY  55 

they  became  the  heralds  to  announce  to  the  world 
the  coming  of  the  Prince  of  peace,  the  Redeemer 
and  Saviour  of  all  men. 

Into  every  great  political,  religious,  educational, 
and  commercial  center  of  the  Roman  Empire  came 
little  bands  of  Jews  seeking  a  haven  of  rest  from 
the  tyranny  and  oppression  at  home.  There  he 
built  his  synagogue,  there  he  worshiped  God,  there 
he  began  to  hope  for  the  Deliverer,  there  he  opened 
the  Scriptures  of  God  and  invited  the  nations  of 
the  world  to  read  the  wonderful  promises  that 
Jehovah  had  made  to  Abraham,  that  in  his  seed 
should  all  the  nations  of  earth  be  blessed. 

How  precious  must  have  been  the  announcement 
of  the  angel  which  startled  the  shepherds  as  they 
watched  their  flocks  by  night  on  the  hills  near 
Bethlehem :  "Be  not  afraid ;  for  behold,  I  bring  you 
good  tidings  of  great  joy  which  shall  be  to  all  the 
people:  for  there  is  born  to  you  this  day  in  the 
city  of  David  a  Saviour,  who  is  Christ  the  Lord." 

The  world's  waiting  was  over.  The  doors  of  the 
temple  of  Janus  were  closed,  and  the  great  Jewish 
heart  unconsciously  joined  in  the  song  of  the  angel 
host  that  sang  over  the  manger-cradle  of  the  world's 
Redeemer  in  Bethlehem,  "Glory  to  God  in  the  high- 
est, and  on  earth  peace  among  men !" 

But  the  peace  was  of  short  duration.  The  birth 
of  Christ  was  only  the  lull  in  the  cruel  conflict 
which  had  raged  around  Jewish  standards  for  four- 
teen hundred  years.  The  dogs  of  war  were  soon 
loosed  again,  the  banners  of  war  were  soon 
unfurled,  the  low  murmurings  and  mutterings  grew 
louder  and  louder  until  at  last  the  storm  burst  in 


56  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

all  of  its  terrific  fury.  Roman  legions  took  up  the 
line  of  march  towards  the  gates  of  Jerusalem.  The 
revolutionists  soon  swept  the  land  free  of  its  Roman 
garrisons.  Maesada,  the  great  fortress  east  of  the 
Jordan,  was  taken  by  storm  and  its  Roman  garrison 
was  put  to  the  sword.  Then,  under  the  splendid 
leadership  of  Eleazar,  the  castle  of  Antonia  fell, 
the  Roman  garrison  was  put  to  death,  and  thus 
Jerusalem  rid  herself  of  the  hated  Gentile  oppres- 
sors who  had  held  sway  over  the  city  for  many 
long,  weary  years. 

Both  Judaea  and  Rome  rose  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  enthusiasm  to  meet  the  impending  crisis.  Cestius 
Gallus,  the  Roman  legate  of  Syria,  marched  upon 
Jerusalem  with  a  large  Roman  army,  but  his  forces 
were  cut  to  pieces  in  the  gorges  of  Bethoron  by 
the  Jewish  forces.  All  negotiations  of  peace 
between  Judaea  and  Rome  were  broken  off,  the 
Jews  had  committed  themselves  to  the  issue,  and 
were  ready  to  abide  by  the  consequences,  whatever 
they  might  be. 

Nero,  the  emperor  of  Rome,  selected  Titus 
Flavins  Vespasian,  one  of  his  very  best  generals, 
to  put  down  the  revolt  in  Palestine.  While  Rome 
was  mobilizing  her  army,  the  Jews  were  strengthen- 
ing their  fortresses,  enlisting  their  forces,  gathering 
their  supplies  and  munitions  of  war,  and  by  the  time 
Rome  was  ready  to  strike,  Judaea  was  ready  to 
return  the  blow.  Vespasian  landed  his  forces  and 
marched  with  fifty  thousand  men  into  Galilee  in 
the  spring  of  67  A.  D.  Opposed  to  him  was  the 
young  but  inexperienced  rabbinical  scholar,  and 
afterwards    the    great    Jewish    historian,    Josephiis. 


THE  JEW   IN   ANCIENT   HISTORY  57 

Vespasian  gained  the  greater  part  of  Galilee  without 
a  sword-stroke,  and  Josephus  took  refuge  in 
Tiberius  with  his  small,  undisciplined  band  of 
Galileans.  Josephus  was  at  last  compelled  to  sur- 
render, and  all  Galilee  was  overrun- 
Nero  died  in  68,  and  the  next  year  Vespasian 
was  chosen  emperor  of  Rome.  The  emperor 
entrusted  the  control  of  affairs  in  Judaea  to  his  son 
Titus,  with  instructions  to  press  the  war  to  its  bitter 
end  with  all  possible  speed,  and  then  hastened  away 
to  Rome.  Like  an  avalanche  he  swept  down  upon 
the  city.  At  the  very  point  where  Jesus  Christ 
stood  and  wept  over  the  city,  the  famous  Tenth 
Legion  of  the  Praetorian  Guard  pitched  its  tents. 
The  siege  lasted  from  April  until  September,  five 
months  of  terrific  struggle,  five  months  of  suffer- 
ing, hunger,  and  slaughter.  Jerusalem  was  blood- 
stained within  and  without.  A  breach  was  at  last 
made  in  the  wall,  the  gates  were  battered  down,  the 
temple  was  burned,  the  city  pillaged,  and  the  little 
remnant  of  heroic  defenders,  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren were  led  away  to  grace  a  conqueror's  tri- 
umphal entry  into  the  capital  city  of  the  world. 
Their  enemies  had  conquered  at  last,  and  Jewish 
courage  and  heroism  had  been  crushed,  but  not 
broken.  Titus  had  thundered  at  her  gates  for  five 
long  months,  but  when  he  at  last  entered  the  city, 
he  entered  it  through  the  graveyard  of  the  Jewish 
nation. 

From  that  day  to  the  present  he  has  been  a 
wanderer  in  a  strange  land,  with  no  place  to  call 
his  own,  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  sojourner 
in  a  land   of   strangers,   seeking  peace   and   liberty 


58  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

of  conscience  which  has  not  often  been  found.  But 
wherever  he  went,  into  whatever  country  he  sought 
refuge,  whatever  land  he  chose  as  his  own,  whatever 
national  banner  waved  over  him,  there  he  became 
a  patriot.  And  it  may  be  safe  to  say  that  he  never 
dishonored  the  flag  he  chose  to  follow. 

Since  his  own  land  was  despoiled,  and  his  own 
city  destroyed,  and  his  own  altars  overthrown  he 
has  commingled  with  the  nations  of  the  world,  and 
yet  he  has  never  lost  his  identity  as  a  Jew.  He 
could  no  more  be  assimilated  by  the  nations  that 
engulfed  him  than  gold  can  be  assimilated  by  the 
earth.  He  has  changed  his  language,  he  has 
changed  his  dress,  he  has  changed  his  business,  he 
has  changed  his  avocation  so  as  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  age  and  nation  in  which  he  lives, 
but  he  has  never  changed  his  character.  They  are 
still  a  peculiar  people,  the  marvel  and  miracle  of 
the  ages. 


VII. 
The  Jew  in  American  History. 

The  Jew's  intimate  touch  with  American  history 
began  even  before  America  was  discovered.  On  the 
same  day,  and  with  the  same  pen  that  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  of  Spain,  signed  the  infamous  edict 
which  drove  from  their  land  more  than  250,000 
Jewish  subjects,  they  also  chartered  the  expedition 
of  Christopher  Columbus  to  sail  in  search  of  East 
India  lands,  which  unexpectedly  resulted  in  the  dis- 
covery of  the  American  continent.  The  expedition 
of  Columbus  completely  changed  the  map  of  the 
world.  Scientific  and  geographical  knowledge  was 
also  completely  revolutionized.  The  expedition  of 
Christopher  Columbus  was  the  most  important 
achievement  ever  undertaken  by  men,  and  its  influ- 
ence on  the  world  has  been  excelled  only  by  one 
event — the  life  and  ministry  of  Jesus  Christ. 

But  the  money  for  the  expedition  of  Christopher 
Columbus  was  furnished  by  a  Jew  by  the  name  of 
Santangel,  and  not  by  Queen  Isabella  of  Spain,  as 
has  been  believed  for  four  hundred  years.  Recent 
examinations  into  the  old  Spanish  records  of  the 
times  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  by  Dr.  Moses 
Kayserling,  of  Buda-Pesth,  Prof.  H.  B.  Adams, 
and  other  eminent  scholars,  have  established  beyond 
any   peradventure,   that    "J^ws,    and    not    jewels," 

59 


60  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

formed  the  financial  basis  that  equipped  the  ships 
of  Columbus  and  sent  them  forth  on  their  wild 
venture. 

The  old  diary  of  Santangel,  the  Jewish  financier 
of  Spain,  and  the  official  records  of  the  State 
Department  of  the  Spanish  Court  reveal  the  facts 
herein  set  forth.  Record  after  record  shows  that 
Santangel  made  loan  after  loan  to  the  King  and 
Queen  of  Spain  at  the  time  when  Columbus  was 
fitting  out  his  little  fleet.  And  while  Queen  Isabella 
offered  to  pawn  her  jewels  for  the  expedition,  it 
did  not  become  necessary  for  her  to  do  so,  as 
Santangel  furnished  the  required  amounts. 

The  charts  by  which  Columbus  sailed  in  search 
of  a  new  world  were  drawn  by  a  Jew  by  the  name 
of  Jehuda  Cresques.  The  ship  physician  was  a 
Jew  by  the  name  of  Bernal.  The  ship  surgeon  was 
a  Jew  by  the  name  of  Marco.  The  first  man  to  see 
land  was  a  Jew  by  the  name  of  Triana.  And  the 
first  man  to  set  foot  on  American  soil  was  a  Jew 
by  the  name  of  Torres. 

As  the  Jews  were  so  intimately  connected  with 
the  discovery  of  America,  it  would  seem  perfectly 
logical  that  they  should  be  intimately  associated  with 
America  in  her  rich  privileges.  And  so  have  they 
been.  They  looked  upon  America  as  their  new 
land  of  promise.  There  was  no  other  land  in  the 
world  where  he  could  set  his  foot  and  be  at  peace. 
America  offered  to  them  an  asylum  of  rest  from  the 
political  and  religious  tyranny  which  not  only  pre- 
vailed in  Spain,  but  also  throughout  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa.  It  seems  that  whenever  the  Jew 
knocked  at  the  gates  of  the  nations,  and  asked  to 


THE  JEW   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY  61 

be  admitted  within  their  sheltering  folds  as  a 
citizen,  to  participate  in  their  achievements,  and  to 
share  in  their  prosperity  or  their  adversity,  that  all 
the  brutality  and  hatred  in  men  flamed  forth. 

But  America  was  an  open  door  to  this  persecu- 
ted and  maltreated  people  who  had  sought  peace 
and  liberty  among  the  nations  and  found  none. 
They  felt  that  the  arm  of  political  tyrants  and  relig- 
ious bigots  was  not  long  enough  to  reach  across  the 
sea.  So  they  turned  their  eyes  to  America  as  their 
new  land  of  political  and  religious  freedom.  They 
were  early  identified  with  the  settlements  in  Ameri- 
ca, and  took  part  in  the  struggles  and  hardships  of 
our  forefathers  who  laid  the  foundations  for  this 
great  American  Republic.  But  the  same  relentless 
and  bloody  hands  that  had  clutched  them  in  Spain, 
and  England,  and  France  were  soon  reached  out 
to  lay  hold  upon  them  in  America.  They  were 
restricted  in  their  property  rights,  their  trading 
privileges,  and  their  religious  liberty  which  they 
had  so  earnestly  sought  in  the  New  World,  and 
more  than  once  the  mob  spirit  in  men  burst  forth. 
But  these  restrictions  of  trade,  property  rights,  and 
religious  freedom  were  gradually  removed  until,  at 
the  time  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  by  the 
English  colonies,  all  men  stood  on  equal  commercial, 
political,  and  religious  terms  in  young  America. 

The  Jews  were  settled  in  New  Amsterdam  (New 
York)  as  early  as  1654,  and  soon  they  found  their 
way  into  every  colony  from  Massachusetts  to 
Georgia.  But  not  until  the  establishment  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  American  Republic,  which  guar- 
anteed   full   religious   liberty  to   all   men,   did   the 


62  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

Jews  come  to  America  in  any  considerable  numbers. 
At  the  outbreak  of  the  American  Revolution  there 
were  groups  of  prosperous  Jews  in  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  Providence,  Boston,  New- 
port, Charleston,  Savannah,  Richmond,  and  in  many 
of  the  smaller  towns  and  villages  along  the  Atlantic 
seaboard.  But  a  very  conservative  estimate  places 
the  number  of  Jews  in  America  at  the  time  of  the 
revolution  at  not  over  thirty-five  hundred. 

The  Jews  were  among  the  very  first  to  respond 
to  the  call  of  their  country  when  the  news  from 
Lexington,  Concord,  and  Bunker  Hill  electrified  the 
whole  country  from  New  Ham.pshire  to  Georgia. 
The  Non-importation  Ordinance  of  1765,  which 
was  the  first  concerted  movement  looking  toward 
the  independence  of  the  thirteen  English  colonies 
in  America,  contained  the  names  of  nine  Jewish 
patriots.  These  are  Benjamin  Levy,  Moses  Mor- 
decai,  Bernard  Gratz,  Sampson  Levy,  Mathias 
Bush,  David  Franks,  Joseph  Jacobs,  Hyman  Levy, 
and  Michael  Gratz. 

When  Washington's  army  was  shivering  in 
their  mud  huts  at  Valley  Forge,  and  the  cause  of 
the  American  army  seemed  hopeless,  with  little 
food,  scant  clothing,  poor  shelter,  without  visible 
means  of  procuring  these,  with  smallpox  raging  on 
every  hand,  with  treason  in  the  camp,  and  with  a 
strong,  well-fed,  well-clothed,  well-sheltered,  well- 
officered,  and  well-armed  foe  in  the  land,  a  Jewish 
merchant  of  Philadelphia,  by  the  name  of  Solomon, 
gave  over  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  feed, 
and  clothe,  and  shelter  Washington's  army.  And 
he   never   asked   for,   nor   did   he   ever   receive,   a 


THE  JEW   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY  63 

dollar  of  it  in  return.  Other  Jewish  patriots  also 
signed  bills  of  credit  to  aid  the  American  cause  of 
independence,  and  altogether  they  appropriated  a 
million  dollars  to  the  cause  of  the  American  arms. 
Jewish  patriots  fought  in  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
American  army,  and  almost  every  battlefield,  from 
Lexington  to  Yorktown,  was  sanctified  by  Jewish 
valor  and  Jewish  blood. 

Three  members  of  Washington's  staff  were 
Jews.  Three  Jewish  soldiers  bore  the  body  of  the 
brave  De  Kalb  from  the  battlefield  of  Savannah. 
A  Jew  was  sent  with  special  messages  from  the 
American  colonies  to  Jay  and  Franklin  in  Europe. 
Jews  fought  in  the  Indian  Wars,  in  the  War  of 
1812,  the  Mexican  War,  the  Civil  War,  and  the 
Spanish-American  War,  many  of  them  reaching 
high  rank,  both  in  the  army  and  navy. 

When  the  battleship  "Maine"  was  blown  up  in 
Havana  Harbor  in  1898,  the  Jewish  press  was  out- 
spoken against  the  outrage,  and  Jewish  blood  boiled 
with  indignation.  And  when  war  was  at  last 
declared,  and  the  call  was  issued  by  President 
McKinley  for  volunteers  to  avenge  the  insult 
offered  to  our  flag  by  Spain,  Jewish  patriots  were 
among  the  first  to  respond  to  the  call  to  arms. 
The  muster-rolls  of  the  army  show  that  more  than 
four  thousand  Jews  embraced  the  opportunity 
afforded  them  to  avenge  a  crime  that  was  committed 
against  their  fathers  in  Spain  more  than  four  hun- 
dred years  before. 

The  first  man  to  volunteer  for  service  in  the 
war  with  Spain  was  a  Jew.  The  first  man  to  fall 
in  the  attack  on  Manila  was  a  Jew.     Seven  of  the 


64  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

famous  "Rough  Rider"  regiment,  commanded  and 
led  by  Col.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  were  Jews.  There 
were  ten  Jewish  artillerymen  in  the  famous  Astor 
Battery.  Fifteen  Jewish  sailors  went  down  with 
the  ill-fated  battleship  "Maine." 

During  the  history  of  the  United  States,  Jewish 
statesmen  have  sat  as  members  of  Congress,  in 
the  United  States  Senate,  in  the  Supreme  Courts  of 
both  State  and  nation,  have  been  members  of 
Presidents'  Cabinets,  have  been  diplomats  and 
ambassadors  of  this  great  nation  to  the  nations  of 
the  world.  They  have  held  the  highest  offices  in 
the  gift  of  the  American  people.  Judah  P. 
Benjamin,  a  Jew,  was  the  Secretary  of  State  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  And  not  only  in  America, 
but  in  every  land  the  world  over,  Jews  have  risen 
to  the  highest  positions  of  trust  and  honor  in  the 
gift  of  nations.  Disraeli  (Lord  Beaconsfield),  once 
Prime  Minister  of  England  for  twenty  years,  was 
a  Jew,  Sir  Rufus  Isaacs,  the  present  Lord  Chief 
Justice  of  England,  is  a  Jew. 

Standing  in  the  forefront  of  the  political  arena 
of  Germany,  France,  Holland,  Austria,  Great  Brit- 
ain, and  the  United  States  are  Jews  who  are  the 
peers  of  the  best  statesmen  of  the  age,  or  of  any 
age.  Jews  have  sung  some  of  the  world's  sweetest 
songs,  have  played  some  of  the  world's  greatest 
dramas,  have  painted  some  of  the  world's  greatest 
pictures,  they  have  composed  and  played  some  of 
the  world's  greatest  music,  and  have  been  among 
the  world's  greatest  merchants,  lawyers,  poets,  writ- 
ers, teachers,  philanthropists,  and  financiers.  He 
was  a  Jew  who  led  in  the  crusade  in  New  York 


THE  JEW   IN   AMERICAN   HISTORY  65 

City  to  give  pure  milk  to  little  children  that  reduced 
the  death-rate  among  infants  from  ninety-six  thou- 
sand to  sixty-three  thousand  in  a  single  year. 

Americans  attain  to  greatness  and  distinction  in 
America,  Englishmen  in  England,  Frenchmen  in 
France,  Germans  in  Germany,  Japanese  in  Japan, 
in  the  land  of  their  fathers,  surrounded  by  every 
fostering  influence,  and  encouraged  and  protected 
by  their  national  life  and  national  institutions.  But 
the  Jews,  like  Daniel,  Ezra,  Esther,  and  Mordecai ; 
like  Disraeli  and  Isaacs,  force  their  way  up  to 
distinction  and  honor  in  a  strange  land,  surrounded 
and  submerged  by  grinding  hatred,  bigotry,  and 
intolerance.  A  man  does  not  deserve  much  credit 
for  reaching  the  highest  station,  fame,  and  success 
when  a  million  friendly  hands  are  reached  down  to 
lift  him  up;  but  a  man  does  deserve  praise  and 
honor  when  a  million  envious  hands  are  reached 
upward  to  drag  him  down,  and  he  can  succeed  in 
spite  of  them  all. 

Jews  own  more  property  per  capita  than  any 
race  of  men  in  the  world,  fewer  of  them  are 
drunkards  than  any  race  of  men  in  the  world, 
fewer  of  them  are  paupers  than  any  race  of  men 
in  the  world,  fewer  of  them  are  criminals  than 
any  race  of  men  in  the  world.  Only  five  Jews 
have  ever  paid  the  death  penalty  for  crime  in  the 
history  c  f  the  United  States.  Fewer  of  them 
are  victims  of  hereditary  diseases  than  any  race  of 
men  in  the  world.  Charitable  institutions  seldom 
hear  his  petition  for  help,  divorce  courts  rarely  see 
his  face,  and  the  slums  and  tenderloin  districts 
seldom  hear  the  silent  footfall  of  Jewish  women. 

5 


66  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

Life  insurance  companies  rate  the  Jew  forty 
per  cent,  higher  as  a  risk  than  any  other  race  of 
men  in  the  world.  Nearly  one-half  of  the  gold  in 
the  world  is  in  Jewish  hands.  They  hold  the 
financial  balance  of  power  in  Germany,  Prussia, 
Russia,  Austria,  France,  Great  Britain,  and  the 
United  States.  Throughout  continental  Europe 
they  hold  the  balance  of  power  in  the  press  of  the 
nations.  And  in  the  United  States  Jews  own  and 
control  the  four  papers  having  the  largest  circula- 
tion in  America.  And  still,  such  nations  as  Russia, 
and  Turkey,  and  Spain,  and  Austria  will  persecute 
the  Jews!  And  still  Christianity  has  spurned  the 
Jews!  O  Thou  insufferable  and  blasphemed  Lord 
God,  open  our  eyes,  that  we  may  see !  Remove 
the  hatred  and  prejudice  from  our  hearts,  that  we 
may  give  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due,  credit  to 
whom  credit  is  due,  praise  to  whom  praise  is  due ! 

"If,  drunk  with  sight  of  power,  we  loose 
Wild  tongues  that  hold  not  Thee  in  awe; 

Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use. 
Or  dearer  bonds  without  the  law — 

Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 

Lest  we  forget,  lest  we  forget." 


VIII. 
The  Jew  in  Literature,  Arts,  and  Science. 

We  are  too  prone  to  think  of  the  Jew  in  terms 
of  poHtics,  and  commerce,  and  statesmanship,  and 
war,  and  we  are  too  apt  to  forget  the  Jews'  contri- 
bution to  Hterature,  music,  painting",  sculpture,  dis- 
covery, and  invention.  The  Jews  are  a  versatile 
race.  He  is  at  home  in  any  calling.  He  can  fight, 
he  can  sing,  he  can  paint,  he  can  delve  into  the 
mysteries  of  nature,  he  can  mould  the  governments 
of  the  world,  he  can  write,  he  can  preach,  he 
can  plead  at  the  bar,  he  is  at  home  on  the  platform 
with  the  orators  of  the  world,  he  can  play  his  part 
well  in  any  realm  of  thought  or  investigation. 

The  Bible  is  the  foundation  of  all  literature,  and 
every  writer,  both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
was  a  Jew,  with  but  one  exception.  Luke,  the 
historian,  is  the  exception,  being  a  Greek.  The 
Bible  has  had  the  largest  sale  of  any  book  ever 
written,  has  been  longest  read,  has  been  most  uni- 
versally read,  and  has  been  most  earnestly  read  of 
all  books.  The  Bible  is  the  only  universal  book. 
We  find  it  in  the  heart  of  Africa,  we  find  it  in 
the  jungles  of  India,  we  find  it  in  Thibet,  we  find 
it  in  old  China  and  in  new  China,  we  find  it  in  the 
shadow  of  the  pyramids,  we  find  it  in  the  islands 
of  the  sea,  we  find   it   in  the  homes   of  the   rich, 

67 


68  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

we  find  it  in  the  homes  of  the  poor,  we  find  it  in 
the  homes  of  the  old,  we  find  it  in  the  homes  of  the 
young,  we  find  it  in  the  homes  of  the  wise,  we  find 
it  in  the  homes  of  the  unwise  the  world  over. 
There  is  not  a  spot  so  dreary,  so  desolate,  so  far 
removed  from  the  light  and  culture  of  civilization 
that  the  Bible  is  not  found  as  a  lamp  to  the  feet 
and  a  light  in  the  pathway  of  the  children  of 
earth. 

The  Bible — not  the  Old  Testament  alone,  but 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments  as  companion 
volumes  of  God's  completed  plan  of  the  ages — 
has  changed  the  map  of  the  world.  Take  a  map 
of  the  world  to-day,  and  place  your  finger  upon  the 
nations  that  hold  the  balance  of  power  in  the  world, 
and  your  finger  will  rest  upon  the  nations  that 
walk  in  the  light  and  guidance  of  the  sacred  Scrip- 
tures. And  then  take  a  second  map  of  the  world, 
and  place  your  finger  upon  the  nations  where  the 
light  of  civilization  shines  brightest,  and  it  will 
rest  upon  the  nations  where  the  open  Book  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  masses.  Civilization  has  reached 
its  highest  point  of  excellency  where  the  dis- 
tribution and  usage  of  the  Bible  is  unrestricted;  it 
reaches  its  next  highest  point  of  eflficiency  where 
the  Bible  exists  in  restricted  usage  and  privilege. 
But  the  lowest  point  in  the  efficiency  of  civilization 
reached  in  lands  where  the  use  of  the  Bible  is 
most  restricted  is  infinitely  better  than  the  highest 
civilization  attained  by  the  nations  that  do  not  have 
the  Bible  at  all. 

The  Bible  has  inspired  the  great  philanthropies 
of  the  world.     Hospitals,  and  schools,  and  colleges. 


THE  JEW   IN   LITERATURE  69 

and  homes,  and  charitable  institutions  stand  every- 
where in  Bible  lands,  but  we  look  in  vain  for  them 
in  the  lands  where  the  Bible  has  never  gone.  India 
looks  to  the  Christian  nations  to  feed  her  starving 
millions;  China  looks  to  the  Christian  nations  to 
relieve  the  distress  in  her  flood-swept  districts;  the 
Balkan  states  look  to  the  Christian  nations  to  feed 
their  hungry  thousands. 

The  Bible  makes  nations.  What  has  made  such 
nations  as  England,  and  Germany,  and  the  United 
States?  Did  commerce  make  them?  Did  philoso- 
phy make  them  ?  Did  the  merciless  plunder  of  other 
nations  make  them?  Did  science  make  them? 
Lying  as  the  basic  principles  of  all  civilization  and 
power  are  the  two  great  corner-stones  upon  which 
these  great  nations  rest :  "Hear,  O  Israel :  Jehovah 
our  God  is  one  Jehovah :  and  thou  shalt  love 
Jehovah  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all 
thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  might."  "For  God  so 
loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  on  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  eternal  life."  On  these  two  great 
principles,  honor  and  reverence  for  God  the  Father, 
and  loyalty  and  obedience  to  the  Son,  rests  our 
national  life.  Take  these  away,  and  how  quickly 
our  civilization  and  power  will  wane. 

Other  books  come  and  go,  but  the  Bible  goes 
on  forever.  The  works  of  comment  and  exposi- 
tion of  the  Bible  are  more  voluminous  than  all  that 
remains  of  Greek  and  Roman  literature  combined. 
An  English  antiquarian  has  found  that  the  number 
of  commentaries  that  have  been  written  on  the  Bible 
exceeds  sixty  thousand  volumes. 


70  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

Out  of  a  thousand  books  published  each  year, 
six  hundred  of  them  never  pay  the  cost  of  pub- 
lication, two  hundred  of  them  just  pay  the  cost 
of  publication,  one  hundred  yield  a  small  profit, 
while  but  few  of  them  make  a  fortune  for  the 
writer.  Of  a  thousand  books  published  each  year, 
six  hundred  and  fifty  are  forgotten  by  the  end  of 
the  first  year,  one  hundred  and  fifty  more  are  for- 
gotten at  the  end  of  the  third  year,  and  only  fifty 
of  them  survive  the  age  that  reads  them.  Of  the 
fifty  thousand  books  published  during  the  seven- 
teenth century,  hardly  sixty  of  them  survive  to  the 
present  age;  of  the  fifty  thousand  books  published 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  not  more  than  sixty 
of  them  remain  with  honor.  For  thousands  of 
years,  thousands  of  writers  have  struggled  to  build 
for  themselves  a  literary  monument  that  would 
survive  the  wreckage  of  time,  but  to-day  there 
are  not  over  five  hundred  of  them  that  are  remem- 
bered. The  others  have  been  forgotten  in  the 
onward  march  of  the  world.  Of  the  two  hundred 
prominent  writers  of  the  nineteenth  century,  how 
many  will  be  remembered  by  the  next  generation? 

But  the  writers  of  the  Bible  have  never  been 
forgotten,  and  their  writings  have  never  grown 
old.  In  the  generations  that  are  yet  unborn,  men 
may  cease  to  read  Homer,  or  Virgil,  or  Livy,  or 
Goethe,  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Tennyson,  Dante, 
Hugo,  or  Longfellow,  but  men  wall  continue  to  read 
David,  and  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah,  Matthew,  Mark, 
Luke,  John,  Paul,  and  Peter  as  long  as  the  world 
shall  stand.  The  twenty-third  Psalm,  the  fifty- 
third  chapter  of  Isaiah,  the   fourteenth  chapter  of 


THE   JEW   IN    LITERATURE  71 

John's  Gospel,  the  twelfth  chapter  of  Romans,  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  First  Corinthians,  and  the 
last  chapter  of  Revelation  will  continue  to  com- 
fort men  when  all  other  pages  of  human  literature 
have  failed. 

The  Scriptures  of  God  have  been  the  source 
from  which  many  of  the  world's  greatest  writers 
have  drawn  their  greatest  themes  and  their  loftiest 
inspiration.  Goethe  had  the  walls  of  his  room 
covered  with  Bible  maps  and  pictures.  Milton 
found  his  theme  for  "Paradise  Lost"  in  the  Scrip- 
tures of  God.  Shakespeare's  "Lady  Macbeth"  was 
only  bloody  Jezebel.  Lord  Byron  caught  the  beauty 
and  ruggedness  of  his  style  from  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah,  and  he  draws  from  Sennacherib's  invasion 
of  Judaea  the  theme  for  one  of  his  grandest  poems. 
Macaulay  crowns  his  most  gigantic  sentence  with 
a  quotation  from  the  Bible.  John  Bunyan  saw  only 
in  a  dream  what  the  apostle  John  saw  by  revelation 
on  the  Isle  of  Patmos.  Scott's  "Waverley"  novel 
characters  are  all  Bible  characters  under  different 
dress. 

Where  would  you  look  for  such  poetry?  Milton 
said,  "There  are  no  songs  like  the  songs  of 
Zion."  Or  where  would  you  look  for  such  oratory? 
Daniel  Webster  said,  "If  there  is  aught  of  eloquence 
in  me,  it  is  because  I  learned  the  Scriptures  at  my 
mother's  knee."  Peter's  sermon  at  Pentecost, 
Paul's  sermon  on  Mars'  Hill,  Paul's  defense  before 
the  Sanhedrin  are  among  the  world's  masterpieces 
of  logic  and  eloquence.  When  Sir  Walter  Scott 
was  dying  he  called  for  "The  Book."  The  attend- 
ant asked  him,  "Which  book — 'Lady  of  the  Lake,' 


72  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

'Ivanhoe,'  'Marmion'  ?"  "No,"  he  said  gently,  "there 
is  but  one  book — the  Bible." 

Patrick  Henry  pressed  the  Bible  to  his  breast  on 
his  dying-bed  and  said,  "Blessed  Book!  The 
greatest  of  all  books,  which  I  have  had  no  time 
to  read,  and  now  it  is  too  late."  Locke  paid  the 
highest  tribute  to  the  Bible.  "It  has  God  for  its 
author,  salvation  for  its  end,  and  truth,  without 
any  mixture  of  error,  for  its  matter — it  is  all  pure, 
all  sincere ;  nothing  too  much,  nothing  wanting." 
Rousseau  said  of  it,  "Peruse  the  works  of  philoso- 
phers, with  all  their  pomp  and  diction ;  how  con- 
temptible they  are  compared  to  the  Scriptures." 

The  influence  of  the  Bible  is  no  less  marked  in 
art  than  in  literature.  Great  artists  have  vied  with 
each  other  in  paying  tribute  to  the  Man  of  Galilee 
and  the  scenes  of  his  life  and  ministry.  The  great 
artists  of  the  world  have  felt  that  the  highest  ideal 
in  art  was  to  paint  the  face  of  the  Man  of  Sor- 
rows. Munkacsy's  "Christ  before  Pilate,"  Schaef- 
fer's  "Christ  the  Comsoler,"  Rubens'  "Cross  of 
Christ,"  Dore's  "Christ  Descending  from  the 
Prsetorium,"  Da  Vinci's  "The  Last  Supper," 
Hunt's  "The  Shadow  of  the  Cross,"  Kirchback's 
"Christ  Blessing  Little  Children,"  Plockhorst's  "The 
Good  Samaritan,"  Hofmann's  "The  Worship  of  the 
Magi,"  Bida's  "The  Calling  of  the  Fishermen," 
Dore's  "The  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus,"  Hofmann's 
"The  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  Raphael's  "The 
Transfiguration"  have  made  the  life  and  ministry 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  live  anew  on  canvas. 

Raphael.  Sargent,  Dore,  West,  Naac,  Titian, 
Plockhorst,  Murillo,  Hofmann,  Da  Vinci,  Harrach, 


THE  JEW   IN   LITERATURE  7Z 

Munkacsy,  Horst,  Lang,  Schaeffer,  Rubens,  Dore 
and  Kirchback  have  hung  before  the  world  the 
scenes  of  Bible  history.  Few  of  the  painters  of  the 
world  have  become  famous  who  have  ignored  the 
scenes  of  the  Bible.  Just  a  few  months  ago  the  enor- 
mous sum  of  $700,000  was  paid  by  Mr.  P.  A.  B. 
Widener,  of  Philadelphia,  for  a  picture  of  Christ 
and  his  mother,  painted  by  Raphael  when  he  was 
but  twenty-two  years  of  age. 

Not  only  has  the  Jew  influenced  the  literature 
and  art  of  the  world,  by  giving  the  Bible  as  the 
foundation  and  inspiration  of  all  literature,  and 
the  scenes  of  the  Bible  as  the  themes  for  the 
world's  greatest  pictures,  but  his  contribution  to 
science  has  been  equally  marked.  Koller,  the  dis- 
coverer of  cocaine,  was  a  Jew.  Koch,  the  eminent 
tuberculosis  specialist,  was  a  Jew.  Rosenthal,  the 
great  nerve  specialist,  was  a  Jew.  Maimonides, 
"The  Jewish  Aristotle,"  ranks  as  one  of  the  world's 
greatest  philosophers. 

In  the  realm  of  music  may  be  mentioned  the 
illustrious  names  of  Mendelssohn,  Strauss,  Ruben- 
stein,  Benedict,  Rosenthal,  Hofmann,  and  Joachim. 
In  the  realm  of  painting  and  sculpture  may  be  men- 
tioned the  names  of  Solomon,  Jacobs,  Levy,  Meyr- 
heim,  and  Lazarus.  Sylvester,  the  eminent  mathe- 
matician, was  a  Jew.  Sir  William  Herschel,  the 
world's  great  astronomer,  was  a  Jew.  Cohn,  the 
noted  botanist,  was  a  Jew. 

Not  only  did  the  Jews  contribute  the  writers 
of  the  Bible,  but  they  contributed  its  defenders  and 
historians  as  well.  Neander,  the  world's  greatest 
church    historian,    was    a    Jew.      And    possibly    no 


74  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

greater  work  in  defense  of  Christianity  was  ever 
written  than  Edersheim's  "Life  of  Christ."  It 
came  at  a  time  when  it  was  sadly  needed  to  stay 
the  tidal  wave  of  German  rationalism  which  was 
striving  to  shake  down  the  fourfold  gospel  narrative 
of  Christ.  This  masterly  work  bound  the  four  Gos- 
pels together  with  a  firmer  clasp  that  has  not  been 
broken. 


IX. 

The  Jew's   Contribution   to   Religion. 

However  great  as  may  be  the  world's  debt  to 
the  Jew  in  history,  literature,  art,  science,  music, 
statesmanship,  commerce,  discoveries,  and  invention, 
had  he  done  nothing  more  than  to  give  birth  to 
the  Christian  religion,  this  alone  should  be  suffi- 
cient to  cause  the  heart  of  the  world  to  pulsate  and 
throb  with  gratitude.  Judaism  and  Christianity 
number  one-third  of  the  population  of  the  world. 
Then,  Mohammedanism,  which  is  but  a  spurious  off- 
spring and  counterfeit  of  Judaism,  also  has  its 
fountain-head  in  "Father  Abraham." 

The  Jew  has  come  down  the  ages,  holding  aloft 
the  torch  of  inspiration  and  revelation,  teaching  the 
Fatherhood  of  God,  the  Lordship  and  Messiahship 
of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  integrity  and  authenticity 
of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  Light  from 
heaven  shone  brightly  on  the  pathway  of  Israel 
from  the  call  of  Abraham  to  the  close  of  the 
prophetic  age.  Then  the  New  Testament  age 
opened  with  a  great  outburst  of  heavenly  light 
when  the  Son  of  man  stood  forth  and  declared, 
"I  am  the  light  of  the  world." 

Paul  declared :  "What  advantage  then  hath  the 
Jew?  Much  every  way:  first  of  all,  that  they  were 
entrusted    with    the    oracles    of    God."      The    one 

75 


76  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

supreme  and  potent  factor  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  New  Testament  Scriptures  is  the  tone  of  con- 
fidence and  authority  with  which  they  speak.  The 
Jew  was  God's  mouthpiece  in  the  world ;  his  herald 
of  better  things  to  come.  And  we  can  not  but 
stand  in  reverence  before  their  faithful  perform- 
ance of  their  heaven-born  mission. 

The  whole  plot  in  the  great  drama  of  human 
redemption,  from  Eden  to  the  Cross,  centers  around 
one  sublime  figure,  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth.  The 
only  essential  difference  between  the  Christ  of  the 
Jews  and  the  Christ  of  the  Gentiles  is,  that  the 
Christ  of  the  Gentiles  came  nineteen  hundred  years 
ago,  while  the  Christ  of  the  Jews  is  yet  to  come. 
Peter  declared,  "For  no  prophecy  ever  came  by 
the  will  of  man :  but  men  spake  from  God,  being 
moved  by  the  Holy  Spirit."  To  the  Jew,  then, 
were  given  these  oracles  of  God  to  speak  to  the 
world  the  evangel  of  the  unity  of  God,  the  divine 
Sonship  of  Christ,  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  and  the 
redemption  of  the  world  through  the  efficacious 
atonement  of  Jesus. 

Lying  at  the  base  of  all  divine  truth  and  revela- 
tion of  God's  word  and  God's  will  to  men  were 
Jewish  prophets  and  apostles  who  spake  to  the 
world  from  time  to  time  the  will  of  God,  the  mercy 
of  God,  the  justice  of  God,  the  love  of  God  con- 
cerning the  world.  Little  by  little,  word  by  word, 
promise  by  promise,  statute  by  statute,  through  age 
after  age,  spanning  the  distance  from  the  fall  of 
man  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  to  his  restoration  in 
Jesus  Christ,  the  whole  plan  of  the  ages  was  woven 
together,    stamped    in    Jewish    thought,    spoken    by 


THE  JEW'S   CONTRIBUTION   TO   RELIGION     11 

Jewish  lips,  penned  by  Jewish  fingers  and  played 
upon  the  stage  of  Jewish  history. 

He  was  a  Jew  who  wrote  the  history  of  the 
world  for  the  first  twenty-five  hundred  years  while 
the  nations  walked  in  darkness.  He  was  a  Jew 
who  penned  those  immortal  lines:  "In  the  begin- 
ning God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  And 
the  earth  was  waste  and  void;  and  darkness  was 
upon  the  face  of  the  deep :  and  the  Spirit  of  God 
moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters.  And  God 
said,  Let  there  be  light:  and  there  was  light."  Fie 
was  a  Jew  who  wrote,  "Thus  saith  Jehovah,  Thou 
shalt  not,"  which  has  been  a  restraining  rein  over 
man's  turbulent  passions  through  all  these  thou- 
sands of  years.  He  was  a  Jew  who  stood  on  the 
heights  of  Jesrael,  and  cried :  "For  unto  us  a  child 
is  born,  unto  us  a  Son  is  given ;  and  the  govern- 
ment shall  be  on  his  shoulder:  and  his  name  shall 
be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  Mighty  God,  Ever- 
lasting Father,  Prince  of  Peace.  Of  the  increase 
of  his  government  and  of  peace  there  shall  be  no 
end,  upon  the  throne  of  David,  and  upon  his  king- 
dom, to  establish  it,  and  to  uphold  it  with  justice 
and  with  righteousness  from  henceforth  even  for- 
ever." 

He  was  a  Jew  who  wrote :  "He  was  despised 
and  rejected  of  men;  a  man  of  sorrows,  and 
acquainted  v/ith  grief :  and  as  one  from  whoni 
men  hid  their  faces  he  was  despised;  and  we 
esteemed  him  not.  Surely  he  hath  borne  our 
griefs,  and  carried  our  sorrows ;  yet  we  did  esteem 
him  stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted.  But 
he   was   wounded    for   our   transgressions,    he   was 


78  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

bruised  for  our  iniquities;  the  chastisement  of  our 
peace  was  upon  him ;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are 
healed.  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray;  we 
have  turned  every  one  to  his  own  way;  and 
Jehovah  hath  laid  on  him  the  iniquity  of  us  all." 

They  were  Jews  who  stood  on  the  watch-towers 
of  the  nations  and  looked  out  on  the  coming  events 
of  the  world.  They  watched  the  rise  and  fall  of 
nations,  they  saw  the  crumbling  of  empires,  the 
sway  of  principalities,  and  the  rending  of  kingdoms, 
as  God  overturned,  overturned,  overturned  to  make 
room  for  the  coming  kingdom  of  Christ.  They 
foretold  with  amazing  accuracy  the  trials  and 
tribulations  which  God  would  visit  upon  the  chil- 
dren of  disobedience.  Then  they  looked  forward 
through  the  centuries  to  the  coming  of  the  Christ, 
the  Redeemer,  the  Saviour,  the  King.  They  foretold 
where  he  was  to  be  born,  to  whom  he  was  to  be 
born,  the  miraculous  manner  in  which  he  was  to  be 
born.  They  told  of  his  wonderful  life,  of  his  won- 
derful ministry,  of  his  miracles,  of  his  sufferings 
and  humiliation,  of  his  betrayal  for  thirty  pieces  of 
silver,  how  men  would  cast  lots  for  his  raiment, 
how  he  would  be  wounded  in  the  hands,  and  that 
not  a  bone  of  his  body  should  be  broken.  They 
told  of  his  death,  of  his  burial,  of  his  resurrection, 
of  his  ascension,  and  of  his  mediation  for  a 
redeemed  world  before  the  Father's  throne. 

She  was  a  Jewish  mother  who  became  the 
chosen  vessel  of  God  to  bring  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
into  the  world.  "And  she  brought  forth  her  first- 
born son :  and  she  wrapped  him  in  swaddling 
clothes,  and  laid  him  in  a  manger,  because  there 


THE  JEW'S   CONTRIBUTION    TO   RELIGION     79 

was  no  room  for  them  in  the  inn."  They  were 
Jewish  shepherds  who  were  startled  by  the 
announcement  of  the  angel,  "Be  not  afraid:  for 
behold,  I  bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  which 
shall  be  to  all  the  people :  for  there  is  born  to  you 
this  day  in  the  city  of  David  a  Saviour,  who  is 
Christ  the  Lord."  They  were  Jewish  shepherds 
who  heard  the  angels  sing  over  the  manger-cradle, 
"Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace 
among  men." 

He  was  a  Jewish  prophet  who  was  entrusted 
with  the  oracles  of  God,  who  stood  forth  on  the 
banks  of  the  Jordan  River  and  cried,  "Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world!"  "There  cometh  after  me  he  that  is 
mightier  than  I,  the  latchet  of  whose  shoes  I  am 
not  worthy  to  stoop  down  and  unloose."  He  was 
a  Jewish  prophet  who  baptized  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  river  Jordan.  They  were  Jewish 
fishermen  who  heard  the  call  of  the  Christ  by  the 
Lake  of  Galilee,  "Come,  follow  me!"  "And  they 
left  all  to  follow  him."  It  was  amid  Jewish 
scenery,  and  with  Jev/ish  players,  that  the  Man  of 
sorrows  staged  the  mightiest  drama  of  all  the  ages. 

He  was  a  Jew  who  prepared  the  upper  room 
in  Jerusalem  where  Christ  observed  the  Jewish 
Passover  feast  with  his  apostles,  and  where  our 
Lord  instituted  the  memorial  supper  as  the  monu- 
ment of  his  death  and  sufferings.  They  were  Jews 
who  sat  with  him  in  that  upper  room  on  the  night 
of  his  betrayal,  and  who  sang  with  him  those 
beautiful  passages  from  the  old  Jewish  Hallel. 

Christ's   soul   was  passing  through   the   shadow 


80  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

cf  the  cross  that  night,  and  the  disciples  were  heavy 
with  grief.  Yet  they  sang  together :  "The  cords  of 
death  compassed  me,  and  the  pains  of  Sheol  gat 
hold  upon  me:  I  found  trouble  and  sorrow. 
Return  unto  thy  rest,  O  my  soul ;  for  Jehovah  hath 
dealt  bountifully  with  thee.  For  thou  hast  delivered 
my  soul  from  death,  mine  eyes  from  tears,  and  my 
feet  from  falling.  What  shall  I  render  unto 
Jehovah  for  all  his  benefits  unto  me?  Precious  in 
the  sight  of  Jehovah  is  the  death  of  his  saints.  O 
give  thanks  unto  Jehovah :  for  he  is  good ;  for  his 
lovingkindness  endureth  forever.  The  stone  which 
the  builders  rejected  is  become  the  head  of  the 
corner.  This  is  Jehovah's  doing;  it  is  marvellous 
in  our  eyes.  Oh,  give  thanks  unto  Jehovah ;  for 
he  is  good ;  for  his  lovingkindness  endureth  for- 
ever." 

He  was  a  Jew  who  came  to  beg  the  body  of 
Jesus  of  Pontius  Pilate,  and  he  wrapped  the  body 
in  a  linen  cloth,  and  laid  it  in  his  own  new  tomb, 
wherein  man  had  never  lain.  He  was  a  Jew  who 
came  with  an  offering  of  an  hundred  pounds  of 
myrrh  and  aloes  to  anoint  the  body  of  Jesus  for 
burial.  They  were  Jewish  women  who  came  to  the 
tomb  of  Jesus  very  early  in  the  morning  of  the 
third  day  to  see  the  sepulchre,  but  were  astonished 
to  find  that  the  great  stone  had  been  rolled  away. 
And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  said  to  the  women : 
"Fear  not  ye ;  for  I  know  that  ye  seek  Jesus,  who 
hath  been  crucified.  He  is  not  here ;  for  he  is  risen, 
even  as  he  said.  Come,  see  the  place  where  the 
Lord  lay.  And  go  quickly,  and  tell  his  disciples, 
he  is  risen  from  the  dead ;  and  lo,  he  goeth  before 


THE  JEW'S   CONTRIBUTION   TO   RELIGION     81 

you  into  Galilee :  and  there  shall  ye  see  him."  She 
was  a  Jewish  woman  who  stood  without  the  tomb 
of  Jesus  weeping  her  heart  out,  when  two  angels 
said  unto  her,  "Woman,  why  weepest  thou?"  She 
said  unto  them,  "Because  they  have  taken  away  my 
Lord,  and  I  know  not  where  they  have  laid  him." 
And  when  she  had  thus  said,  she  turned  herself 
back,  and  beheld  Jesus  standing,  and  knew  not  that 
it  was  Jesus.  Jesus  saith  unto  her,  "Woman,  why 
weepest  thou?  Whom  seekest  thou?"  Mary  sup- 
posed him  to  be  the  gardener,  and,  thinking  that  he 
might  know  something  of  what  had  become  of  the 
body  of  Jesus,  she  said,  "Sir,  if  thou  hast  borne 
him  hence,  tell  me  where  thou  hast  laid  him,  and 
I  will  take  him  away."  Christ  said  unto  her, 
"Mary!"  Oh,  she  had  found  her  Lord,  her  Master, 
her  Friend,  and  she  went  with  flying  feet  to  tell 
the  disciples,  "I  have  seen  the  Lord !  I  have  seen 
the  Lord!" 

They  were  Jews  to  whom  Christ  gave  the  com- 
mission :  "Go  ye  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of 
all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit: 
teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I 
have  commanded  you :  and  lo,  I  am  with  you 
always,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world."  They 
were  Jews  who  were  dwelling  in  Jerusalem,  "devout 
men  from  every  nation  under  heaven,"  who  saw  the 
manifestation  of  the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
poured  out  upon  the  apostles  at  Pentecost,  who 
heard  the  first  gospel  sermon  preached  in  the 
world,  who  cried  to  Peter  and  the  rest  of  the  apos- 
tles,  "Brethren,   what   shall   we  do?" 

6 


82  CHRISTIANITY    AND    THE   JEW 

Then,  he  was  a  Jew  who  used  the  keys  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  and  opened  doors  that  day  that 
no  man  could  shut,  and  shut  doors  that  no  man 
could  open,  when  the  Holy  Spirit  answered  the 
question  of  the  multitude :  "Repent  ye,  and  be  bap- 
tized every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
unto  the  remission  of  your  sins;  and  ye  shall 
receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  For  to  you  is 
the  promise,  and  to  your  children,  and  to  all  that 
are  afar  off,  even  as  many  as  the  Lord  our  God 
shall  call  unto  him."  And  they  were  Jews,  three 
thousand  of  them,  representing  eighteen  different 
nations,  who  obeyed  the  first  gospel  sermon  of 
the  new  dispensation,  and  were  baptized  in  the 
name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  They  formed  the  first  church  of  Christ  in 
the  world,  the  mother  church  of  us  all.  Around 
this  church  of  Jewish  disciples  was  to  grow  a  world 
power,  and  every  church  in  the  world  to-day  is  the 
offspring  of  the  mother  church  in  Jerusalem.  Jeru- 
.salem  was  the  city  of  beginnings. 

He  was  a  Jew  who  declared,  "And  in  none  other 
is  there  salvation :  for  neither  is  there  any  other 
name  under  heaven,  that  is  given  among  men, 
Vi'herein  we  must  be  saved."  He  was  a  Jew  who 
cried,  "For  I  am  determined  not  to  know  anything 
among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ,  and  him  crucified." 
He  was  a  Jew  who  declared,  "I  am  ready  not  to 
be  bound  only,  but  also  to  die  at  Jerusalem  for  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  He  was  a  Jew  who 
declared,  "But  we  preach  Christ  crucified,  unto  the 
Jews  a  stumbling-block,  and  unto  the  Gentiles 
foolishness;   but   unto   them    that   are   called,    both 


THE   JEW'S    CONTRIBUTION    TO   RELIGION     83 

Jews  and  Greeks,  Christ  the  power  of  God,  and 
the  wisdom  of  God." 

He  was  a  Jew  who  declared,  "Brethren,  my 
heart's  desire  and  my  suppHcation  to  God  is  for 
them,  that  they  may  be  saved.  And  so,  all  Israel 
shall  be  saved."  He  was  a  Jew  who  declared,  "If 
any  man  suffer  as  a  Christian,  let  him  not  be 
ashamed ;  but  let  him  glorify  God  in  this  name. 
For  the  time  is  come  for  judgment  to  begin  at  the 
house  of  God :  and  if  it  begin  first  at  us,  what  shall 
be  the  end  of  them  that  obey  not  the  gospel  of 
God?  And  if  the  righteous  scarcely  be  saved, 
where  shall  the  ungodly  and  sinner  appear?" 

They  were  Jews  who  formed  the  membership  of 
the  church  for  the  first  seven  years  of  her  history 
in  the  world.  The  first  Christian  martyr  was  a 
Jew.  The  first  convert  to  Christianity  in  Europe 
was  a  Jewess.  They  were  Jews  who  planted 
churches  all  over  Asia  Minor,  northern  Africa,  and 
continental  Europe. 

But  back  of  this  glorious  picture  of  triumphant 
faith  and  courage,  there  is  the  dark  background  of 
a  nation's  apostasy.  "He  came  unto  his  own,  and 
they  that  were  his  own  received  him  not."  Jewish 
elders,  and  scribes,  and  Pharisees  stood  in  Pilate's 
judgment  hall  and  cried,  "Away  with  him !  Away 
with  him!  Crucify  him!  Crucify  him!  His  blood 
be  on  us,  and  on  our  children !" 

From  that  day  to  this  they  have  been  an  epithet 

and   a   byword    among   the    nations    of    the    world. 

Oh,  how  bitter  have  been  the  fruits  of  disobedience 

and  unbelief !     No  greater  proof  could  possibly  be 

offered  for  the  truthfulness  of  the  Christian  relig- 
7 


84  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

ion  than  that  the  very  men,  into  whose  hands  had 
been  entrusted  the  oracles  of  God,  spared  not  their 
own  nation  for  their  unbeHef  and  apostasy.  But 
everywhere  the  same  principle  prevailed  that 
appeared  in  Antioch  in  Pisidia.  The  Jews  blas- 
phemed the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  Paul  and 
Barnabas  spake  out  boldly  and  said,  "It  was  neces- 
sary that  the  word  of  God  should  first  be  spoken  to 
you.  Seeing  ye  thrust  it  from  you,  and  judge  your- 
selves unworthy  of  eternal  life,  lo,  we  turn  to  the 
Gentiles."  And  unto  this  day  they  are  reaping  the 
consequences  of  their  stubbornness  and  unbelief, 
which  they  invoked  upon  their  uncovered  heads  in 
Pilate's  judgment  hall  nineteen  hundred  years  ago. 
But  a  better  and  brighter  day  is  dawning. 


X. 

The  Spiritual  Unrest  of  the  Jewish  People. 

There  is  a  spirit  of  unrest  prevailing  among  the 
Jews  scattered  throughout  the  world  to-day,  as  in 
no  other  period  of  their  history.  The  Jews  are 
drifting  from  their  ancient  moorings,  but  toward 
what  are  they  drifting?  Toward  what  can  they 
drift?  Everywhere  the  signs  of  the  times  point  to 
the  cleavage  of  the  old  faith.  What  shall  they  sub- 
stitute for  it?  They  can  not  drift  far  from  the 
faith  of  their  fathers,  because  there  are  too  many 
anchors  to  hold  them,  and  too  many  voices  calling 
to  them  out  of  the  glorious  past.  Christianity  is  the 
only  logical  conclusion. 

That  there  is  this  unmistakable  drift  of  the 
Jews  away  from  their  ancient  faith  and  toward 
Christianity,  the  tone  of  the  Jewish  press  through- 
out the  world  is  a  sufficient  verification  of  these 
facts.  The  alarm  that  is  felt  by  Jewish  editors,  both 
in  Europe  and  America,  and  the  repeated  appeals 
and  warnings  that  are  sounded  out  to  the  orthodox 
Jews,  are  indicative  of  the  great  crisis  that  has  come 
to  the  Jewish  nation. 

Since  the  Jewish  newspapers  reach  nearly  all 
the  Jews  in  this  country,  it  is  exceedingly  interest- 
ing to  note  the  anxiety  that  is  felt  m  the  ranks  of 
their  leaders  of  political  and  religious  thought.     The 


86  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

Jewish  (Yidish)  Daily  Neivs,  in  its  issue  of  Decem- 
ber 18,  1910,  published  a  long  article  on  the  subject 
of  Christianity  among  the  Jews.  The  caption  of  the 
article  was  striking.  "Two  Hundred  and  Four 
Thousand  Baptized  Jews  in  the  Last  Hundred 
Years.  Mournful  Figures  Pui^lished  by  a 
Learned  Jew  at  Wien." 

"The  Learned  Jew"  referred  to  is  Dr.  Zalson, 
of  Wien,  Austria,  the  widely  known  Jewish  author 
and  lecturer  on  the  Jewish  race.  In  his  lecture  Dr. 
Zalson  set  forth  some  figures  of  the  number  of 
Jews  in  the  world  who  have  accepted  Christianity 
in  the  past  hundred  years.  He  admitted  that  204,000 
Jews  left  their  ancient  faith  and  accepted  Christian- 
ity in  the  past  hundred  years.  Of  this  vast  num- 
ber, 22,000  were  in  Germany,  28,000  in  England, 
44,000  in  Austria,  84,000  in  Russia,  and  13,000  in 
America. 

He  set  forth  the  fact  that  the  number  of  Jews 
who  are  embracing  Christianity  are  increasing  every 
year.  In  the  year  1890  three  hundred  Jews  in  one 
city  left  their  ancient  faith  and  accepted  Christian- 
ity. In  the  same  city  in  the  year  1904  six  hundred 
Jews  accepted  Christ  as  their  Lord  and  Saviour. 

The  editor  of  the  Jewish  (Yidish)  Daily  News 
tried  to  give  reasons  for  this  alarming  drift  of  the 
Jewish  people  toward  Christianity.  And  the  very 
fact  that  a  Jewish  paper  should  give  space  to  these 
facts,  and  to  issue  its  appeal  and  its  warning  to 
the  Jews  throughout  the  world,  is  very  significant. 
And  the  very  fact  that  such  a  noted  scholar  and 
lecturer  as  Dr.  Zalson  should  embody  these  facts 
into  a  lecture,  is  also  very  significant. 


SPIRITUAL   UNREST  87 

In  the  columns  of  the  Jewish  Comment,  of  Balti- 
more, of  the  issue  of  December  30,  1910,  the  editor 
gave  space  to  a  very  lengthy  article  under  the 
caption  of  "Apostasy  in  Jewry,"  from  which 
we  quote  the  following:  "Take,  for  instance,  the 
case  of  the  'Mschumodim,'  the  many  instances  of 
the  Jews  who  are  leaving  their  faith  to  embrace 
that  of  the  Christian  majority  and  are  increasing 
at  an  alarming  rate.  Whoever  can  remember  the 
feeling  of  horror  and  deep-felt  indignation  that  the 
very  mention  of  the  word  'apostate'  was  wont  to 
call  forth  from  even  the  most  ordinary  Jew;  how 
it  was  synonymous  with  all  that  was  mean;  how 
all,  even  the  nearest  of  kin,  avoided  all  contact  with 
the  traitor;  his  brothers  and  parents  rent  their  gar- 
ments and  sat  on  the  floor  for  the  seven  days  of 
mourning,  and  how  his  very  name  became  a  curse, 
will  wonder  at  the  transformation  that  has  come 
over  our  people  these  last  few  years." 

Dr.  Melamed,  the  eminent  scholar  of  London, 
England,  in  his  great  book,  declares,  "The  Jews 
have  now  scarcely  anything  in  common  with  the 
Jews  of  the  Bible."  Dr.  Hertz,  the  chief  rabbi  of 
the  British  Empire,  declared  in  a  sermon :  "Hosts 
of  our  men  and  women  of  to-morrow  are  losing 
belief  in  Israel's  future,  and  are  drifting  into 
unbaptized  apostasy."  From  an  article  that 
appeared  in  Die  Welt,  the  noted  Zionist  organ,  we 
quote  the  following:  "Two  hundred  and  twenty-four 
Berliners  left  Judaism  in  that  year  (1911),  most  of 
them  identifying  themselves  with  the  Lutheran 
Church — this  does  not  include  children.  Among 
them     were     persons     of     prominence — Dr.     Otto 


88  CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  JEW 

Brehms,  of  the  Lessing  Theater;  the  'cellist,  Dr. 
Heinrich  Gruenfeld.  Thirteen  were  physicians,  four 
lawyers,  eight  engineers,  and  three  chemists.  These 
are  not  dry  leaves  that  are  falling  away  from 
us,  but  the  very  best.  .  .  .  Well-informed  people 
know  that  in  Russia  are  to-day  currents  in  Jewish 
life  which  are  setting  toward  Christianity." 

Judaism  is  religiously  hopeless,  and  intelligent 
Jews  throughout  the  world  can  not  ignore  these 
facts  any  longer.  And  the  preceding  quotations 
from  Jewish  addresses  and  editorials  show  conclu- 
sively that  they  are  not  ignoring  them.  For  cen- 
turies the  Jewish  people  have  manifested  a  silent 
contempt  for  Christianity,  but  now  they  are  creating 
a  missionary  sentiment  among  their  people  in  the 
endeavor  to  combat  Christianity  and  hold  the 
younger  Jews  in  their  synagogues. 

In  the  issue  of  The  Truth,  a  Yidish  paper  pub- 
lished in  New  York,  in  the  issue  of  December  30, 
1913,  a  census  of  the  Jewish  population  of  the 
world  was  given  as  follows:  There  are  13,350,846 
Jews  in  the  world.  Of  this  number,  there  are 
9,950,175  in  Europe;  484,359  in  Asia;  404,836  in 
Africa;  3,194,061  in  America  and  19,415  in  Aus- 
tralia and  the  islands  of  the  sea.  Of  the  9,950,175 
Jews  in  Europe,  6,064,415  are  in  blood-stained  Rus- 
sia. This  census  gives  them  a  larger  numerical 
strength  than  they  ever  possessed  in  the  palmiest 
days  of  their  history  in  Palestine.  There  are  more 
than  a  million  Jews  in  New  York  City  alone,  which 
is  more  than  there  ever  were  in  Jerusalem  at  the 
height  of  her  power. 

Of  this  million  Jews  in  New  York  City,  only 


SPIRITUAL  UNREST  89 

40,000  of  them  ever  attend  a  synagogue.  In  Louis- 
ville, Kentucky,  there  are  19,000  Jews,  and  not  over 
3,500  of  this  number  are  attendants  upon  their 
synagogue  worship.  Many  other  great  Jewish  cen- 
ters in  this  and  other  countries  reveal  the  same 
startling  facts,  showing  that  the  synagogue  worship 
has  lost  its  grip  on  the  Jewish  people.  Mr.  W.  J. 
Solomon,  editor  of  the  leading  Jewish  paper,  the 
Hebrew  Standard,  placed  the  Jewish  population  of 
the  United  States  at  2,150,000.  And  Dr.  Carroll, 
the  religious  statistician  of  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, gave  out  the  religious  census  of  the 
United  States  at  the  close  of  the  year  1913,  and 
placed  the  number  of  Jews  who  attend  their 
synagogue  worship  at  only  143,000.  And  therein 
lies  an  awful  tragedy. 

If  they  are  turning  away  from  the  ancient  faith 
of  their  fathers,  to  whom  will  they  go?  To  what 
will  they  go?  There  is  entering  into  the  Jewish 
race  a  wedge  that  must  either  drive  them  to  Christ 
or  into  ultimate  atheism.  The  Jewish  people  face 
one  or  the  other  of  these  two  alternatives.  Every- 
where there  are  the  unmistakable  signs  of  disinte- 
gration of  the  old  Jewish  faith  that  is  alarming. 
Judaism  is  adrift,  and  it  must  either  anchor  the 
craft  to  the  Rock  of  Ages  or  be  dashed  to  pieces. 

And  there  are  reasons  for  this  unmistakable 
drift  of  the  Jews  away  from  their  ancient  moor- 
ings. Ever  since  the  day  when  they  stood  in 
Pilate's  judgment  hall  and  cried,  "Away  with  him! 
Away  with  him !  Crucify  him !  Crucify  him !  His 
blood  be  on  us,  and  on  our  children!"  no  voice 
from   God   has   spoken  to  them,   no   angel   of  the 


90  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE   JEW 

Lord  has  come  to  comfort  and  to  console  them  in 
their  sorrows  and  afflictions,  no  prophet  of  God 
has  come  to  lead  them  in  wisdom's  ways.  The 
silence  that  has  prevailed  in  their  ancient  sanctu- 
aries for  nineteen  hundred  years  has  been  the  silence 
of  death.  The  Christ  of  God  was  "despised  and 
rejected  of  men,"  and  heaven  has  seemed  closed 
against  their  cries. 

During  the  nineteenth  century  Christianity 
entered  Judaism  as  an  opening  wedge  to  pry  her 
from  her  fixed  course.  There  are  at  present 
organized  and  active  missionary  societies  at  work 
among  the  Jews  as  follows:  Africa,  4;  Canada,  6; 
United  States,  41 ;  Asia,  6;  Australia,  2;  Europe,  58. 
Including  societies,  auxiliary  societies,  stations,  and 
outstations,  there  are  at  present  four  hundred 
pivotal  points  in  the  world  where  concerted  and 
earnest  effort  is  being  made  to  lead  the  Jews  to 
Christ.  And  not  without  effect.  In  an  issue  of 
the  Canadian  Jeivish  Times  of  April  11,  1913,  in  a 
plea  to  counteract  the  influence  of  Christian  mis- 
sions among  the  Jews  in  that  quarter,  it  makes  the 
following  remarkable  admission :  "The  missionary 
influence  in  the  ward  has  reached  a  high  pitch 
among  the  Jewish  children.  The  missionaries  con- 
duct sewing-schools  and  Sunday  schools,  in  order 
to  attract  Jewish  children,  and  at  the  same  time 
accustom  them  to  singing  Christian  hymns." 

And  with  what  results  are  these  labors  being 
crowned?  It  has  been  estimated,  as  previously 
mentioned,  that  two  hundred  and  four  thousand 
Jews  accepted  Christianity  during  the  past  one  hun- 
dred years,  and  two  thousand  Jews  have  preached 


SPIRITUAL  UNREST  91 

the  gospel  of  Christ  during  the  past  hundred  years. 
The  most  conservative  estimates  claim  that  three 
thousand  Jews  have  been  baptized  each  year  of  this 
twentieth  century. 

Already  six  hundred  thousand  copies  of  the  New 
Testament  have  been  printed  for  inquiring  Jews. 
There  are  310  Hebrew  Christians  in  the  Church 
of  England  alone,  of  which  number  thirteen 
are  bishops.  While  there  are  thousands  of  Chris- 
tianized Jews  in  the  world  who  are  not  ashamed 
of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  there  are  many  thousands 
more  who  are  followers  of  Christ  in  secret,  but 
who  have  never  possessed  the  courage  of  their  con- 
victions to  step  over  the  line  and  confess  Christ 
openly  before  the  world. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  147  missionaries 
at  work  among  the  Jews,  fifty-one  of  whom  are 
Hebrews.  In  a  rare  volume,  "Some  Jewish  Wit- 
nesses for  Christ,"  by  Rev.  A.  Bernstein,  published 
in  1909,  the  author  gives  a  short  biographical  sketch 
of  525  eminent  Jewish  men  and  women  who  have 
not  been  ashamed  of  Christ  as  their  Lord  and  Sa- 
viour, Beginning  with  Pentecost,  he  mentions  Jewish 
converts  to  Christ  in  groups  of  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands. Then,  from  the  close  of  the  apostolic  age, 
and  reaching  down  to  our  own  times,  he  mentions 
these  525  Jewish  witnesses  for  Christ,  their  trials 
and  tribulations  for  their  faith.  This  list  contains 
the  names  of  bishops,  college  professors,  scientists, 
writers,  musicians,  statesmen,  painters,  sculptors, 
philanthropists,  lawyers,  doctors,  and  philosophers. 

In  the  list  are  such  striking  names  as  Disraeli, 
once  Prime  Minister  of  England  for  twenty  years; 


92  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

Edersheim,  the  author  of  the  "Life  of  Christ,"  rec- 
ognized and  accepted  the  world  over  as  the  greatest 
work  of  its  kind  ever  written ;  Neander,  the  great 
church  historian;  Mendelssohn,  the  world's  famous 
musician;  Herschel,  the  great  astronomer;  and 
Bishops  Hellmuth,  Alexander,  and  Schereschewsky. 
It  is  a  new  book  of  martyrs,  which  should  be  read 
by  every  Christian,  both  Jew  and  Gentile,  in  the 
world.  But  it  tells  only  a  part  of  the  story  of  Jew- 
ish martyrdoms,  faith,  and  courage.  For  in  every 
land  there  can  be  found  scores  of  Jewish  Christians 
who,  like  them  of  old,  have  given  up  all  to  follow 
Christ.  This  is  the  leavening  that  must  leaven  the 
whole  lump. 


XI. 

The  Hands  on  the  Dial. 

What  is  our  relationship  to  the  Jew?  Do  we 
owe  him  anything?  Are  we,  as  Christians,  under 
any  obligation  to  the  Jews?  Does  not  common  jus- 
tice constrain  us  to  reach  out  a  helping  hand 
to  the  friendless  and  helpless?  Does  not  the 
very  Spirit  of  the  Christ,  whom  we  profess  i^ 
follow,  demand  that  we  should  preach  the  gospel 
to  every  creature?  Paul  said:  "To  the  Jew  first, 
and  also  to  the  Greek."  Have  we  outgrown 
the  obligation?  For  nineteen  hundred  years  we 
have  rejoiced  in  this  glorious  gospel  that  was 
preached  to  the  Jew  first,  and  then  to  the  Greek. 
And  now,  it  seems  to  me,  it  is  nothing  short  of 
sheer  cowardice,  sheer  disloyalty  to  God,  sheer  dis- 
loyalty to  Christ,  and  treachery  to  the  Jew,  if  Chris- 
tians refuse  or  neglect  to  return  this  gospel  to  those 
from  whom  we  first  received  it  with  usury. 

The  Jews  are  a  proud  and  stubborn  people. 
And  while  we  deplore  their  stubbornness,  we  can 
not  deplore  their  national  pride.  He  can  trace  his 
ancestry  back  through  nearly  four  thousand  years 
of  most  illustrious  achievements.  There  is  not  a 
man  living  in  the  world  to-day  who  can  boast 
that  in  his  veins  flows  the  blue  blood  of  Pharaoh, 
or  Sennacherib,  or  Belshazzar,  or  Nebuchadnezzar, 

93 


94  CHRISTIANITY    AND   THE   JEW 

or  Alexander,  or  Caesar,  or  Hannibal.  But  there 
are  more  than  thirteen  million  people  in  the  world 
to-day  who  can  say  with  no  little  pride  that  in  their 
veins  flows  the  blue  blood  of  Abraham,  and  Isaac, 
and  Jacob. 

In  almost  every  city  in  the  land  there  is  to  be 
found  the  illustrious  Levy  family.  Who  are  these 
but  the  sons  of  Levi,  whose  fathers  were  the  royal 
priesthood  of  the  house  of  Israel  for  a  thousand 
years,  and  who  to-day,  were  it  not  for  the  wrong 
and  the  injustice  of  the  powers  that  be,  would  be 
serving  before  the  altars  of  Jehovah  God  in  his 
temple  in  Jerusalem? 

When  Napoleon  stood  with  his  legions  in  the 
shadov/  of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt,  and  watched 
the  long  lines  of  the  enemy  forming  for  battle,  he 
roused  them  to  the  highest  pitch  of  courage  and 
enthusiasm  with  the  cry,  "Soldiers,  from  yonder 
heights  forty  centuries  look  down  upon  you !"  But 
there  stands  in  our  midst  to-day  a  race  of  men 
whose  fathers  at  least  saw  some  of  the  pyramids 
in  process  of  construction.  And  it  may  be  that  some 
of  those  great  stones  in  those  giant  monuments 
were  sanctified  by  the  blood  of  Jewish  fingers. 

At  the  least  they  looked  upon  the  face  of  the 
Sphinx  before  it  had  grown  gray  with  age.  They 
stood  in  the  hall  of  Memnon  and  looked  upon  the 
splendor  of  Thebes  before  Time  had  toppled  them 
into  ruins.  Moses  and  Aaron  led  a  mighty  host 
out  of  Egypt  while  she  was  still  in  her  glory,  and 
before  her  crumbled  walls,  her  broken  columns,  and 
her  magnificent  statuary  became  the  silent  watchers 
over  the  tombs  of  her  buried  kings  and  princes. 


THE   HANDS    ON    THE   DIAL  95 

Has  God  forsaken  the  Jew?  Has  God  left  him 
helpless  and  hopeless  in  his  apostasy?  Has  God 
forgotten  the  promise  that  he  made"  to  Abraham, 
and  so  faithfully  reaffirmed  to  Isaac  and  to  Jacob? 
Has  Christ  turned  away  from  them?  Has  the  Holy 
Spirit  forsaken  them?  No,  God,  nor  Christ,  nor 
the  Holy  Spirit  has  left  them  helpless  and  hopeless. 
God's  mill  grinds  slowly,  but  it  grinds  exceedingly 
fine. 

In  Jer.  16:14,  15,  we  read:  "Therefore,  the 
day  shall  come,  saith  Jehovah,  that  it  shall  no 
more  be  said,  As  Jehovah  liveth,  that  brought  up 
the  children  of  Israel  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt;  but, 
As  Jehovah  liveth,  that  brought  up  the  children  of 
Israel  from  the  land  of  the  north,  and  from 
all  the  countries  whither  he  had  driven  them.  And 
I  will  bring  them  again  into  their  land  that  I  gave 
unto  their  fathers." 

In  Joel  3  :  1-3  we  read :  "Behold,  in  those  days, 
and  in  that  time,  when  I  shall  bring  back  the  cap- 
tivity of  Judah  and  Jerusalem,  I  will  gather  all 
nations,  and  will  bring  them  down  into  the  valley 
of  Jehoshaphat;  and  I  will  execute  judgment  upon 
them  there  for  my  people  and  for  my  heritage 
Israel,  whom  they  have  scattered  among  the 
nations." 

In  Zech.  2:1-4  we  read:  "And  I  lifted  up 
mine  eyes,  and  saw,  and,  behold,  a  man  with  a 
measuring  line  in  his  hand.  Then  said  I,  Whither 
goest  thou?  And  he  said  imto  me,  To  measure 
Jerusalem,  to  see  what  is  the  breadth  thereof,  and 
what  is  the  length  thereof.  And,  behold,  the  angel 
that  talked  with  me  went  forth,  and  another  angel 


96  CHRISTIANITY  AND  THE  JEW 

went  out  to  meet  him,  and  said  unto  him,  Run, 
speak  to  this  young  man,  saying,  Jerusalem  shall  be 
inhabited  as  villages  without  walls." 

In  Jer.  32:37-43  we  read:  "Behold,  I  will 
gather  them  out  of  all  the  countries,  whither  I  have 
driven  them  in  mine  anger,  and  in  my  wrath,  and 
in  great  indignation;  and  I  will  bring  them  again 
unto  this  place,  and  I  will  cause  them  to  dwell 
safely.  And  they  shall  be  my  people,  and  I  will  be 
their  God :  and  I  will  give  them  one  heart  and  one 
way,  that  they  may  fear  me  forever,  for  the  good  of 
them,  and  of  their  children  after  them :  and  I  will 
make  an  everlasting  covenant  with  them,  that  I  will 
not  turn  away  from  following  them,  to  do  them 
good ;  and  I  will  put  my  fear  in  their  hearts,  that 
they  may  not  depart  from  me.  Yea,  I  will  rejoice 
over  them  to  do  them  good,  and  I  will  plant  them 
in  this  land  assuredly  with  my  whole  heart  and 
with  my  whole  soul.  For  thus  saith  Jehovah :  Like 
as  I  have  brought  all  this  great  evil  upon  this 
people,  so  will  I  bring  upon  them  all  the  good  that 
I  have  promised  them.  And  fields  shall  be  bought 
in  this   land." 

In  Rom.  11:  15,  Paul  says:  "For  if  the  casting 
away  of  them  is  the  reconciling  of  the  world, 
what  shall  the  receiving  of  them  be,  but  life  from 
the  dead?"  And  in  Rom.  11:23-26,  Paul  reasons 
further:  "And  they  also,  if  they  continue  not  in 
their  unbelief,  shall  be  grafted  in :  for  God  is  able  to 
graft  them  in  again.  For  if  thou  wast  cut  out  of 
that  which  is  by  nature  a  wild  olive  tree,  and  wast 
grafted  contrary  to  nature  into  a  good  olive  tree; 
how  much  more  shall  these,  which  are  the  natural 


THE   HANDS   ON    THE   DIAL  97 

branches,  be  grafted  into  their  own  olive  tree  ?  For 
I  would  not,  brethren,  have  you  ignorant  of  this 
mystery,  lest  ye  be  wise  in  your  own  conceits,  that 
a  hardening  in  part  hath  befallen  Israel,  until  the 
fulness  of  the  Gentiles  be  come  in;  and  so  all 
Israel  shall  be  saved." 

And  in  Rom.  11:12,  Paul  says:  "Now  if  their 
fall  is  the  riches  of  the  world,  and  their  loss  the 
riches  of  the  Gentiles;  how  much  more  their  ful- 
ness?" Thus  we  find  that  the  Jewish  people  are  to 
be  called  out  of  the  nations  that  have  plundered 
them;  that  they  are  to  return  to  their  ancient  land; 
that  they  shall  rebuild  Jerusalem,  and  that  it  shall 
be  without  walls,  for  Jehovah  shall  be  unto  them 
a  wall  of  protection;  that  they  are  to  be  grafted 
into  the  good  olive-tree  of  Christianity.  "And  so 
all  Israel  shall  be  saved." 

The  time  is  coming  when  the  Jews  are  to  return 
to  Palestine,  to  lay  again  the  foundations  of  a 
mighty  empire  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old  kingdom 
of  David.  And  if  we  are  interpreting  rightly  the 
signs  of  the  times,  we  are  now  living  in  the  begin- 
ning of  this  mighty  undertaking.  The  Zionist  move- 
ment is  an  epoch-making  force  that  is  sweeping 
over  the  world,  a  movement  that  is  awakening  the 
keenest  interest  among  the  nations,  a  movement  that 
is  destined  to  give  birth  to  a  new  nation,  a  move- 
ment that  is  calling  Jews  from  every  quarter  of  the 
globe  to  enter  again  into  their  lost  estate. 

With  the  crumbling  of  the  walls  of  the  old 
Turkish  monarchy,  the  doors  that  have  been  closed 
so  long  against  the  rightful  owners  of  Judaea  are 
now   swinging  open  wide  to   admit  them   into   the 


98  CHRISTIANITY   AND   THE  JEW 

land  of  their  fathers.  Their  hopes  rose  to  the 
highest  expectancy  during  the  Balkan  War.  In  it 
they  saw  the  possible  fruition  of  their  dreams — either 
that  the  Balkan  states  would  drive  Turkey  from 
the  rank  of  nations,  or  that  Turkey  would  become 
so  completely  bankrupt  that  she  would  agree  to  sell 
Palestine  to  the  Jews. 

But  these  hopes  are  not  shattered  in  the  least 
by  the  outcome  of  the  struggle.  In  anticipation  of 
coming  events,  thousands  of  Jews  are  already  there. 
They  are  buying  up  the  land,  they  are  installing 
the  machinery  of  a  new  nation,  they  are  introduc- 
ing modern  methods  of  agriculture,  they  are  build- 
ing railroads,  they  are  building  schools,  and  colleges, 
and  hospitals,  and  banks,  and  telephone  and  tele- 
graph lines.  Plans  are  now  being  formulated  to 
establish  a  Jewish  university  in  Jerusalem. 

The  flood-tide  of  hatred  and  ill-will  toward  the 
Jew  has  reached  its  crest,  and  is  now  receding  so 
fast.  And  to-day  the  world  is  throbbing  and  pul- 
sating with  friendliest  interest  in  this  great  world 
movement  of  the  Jev»^s  toward  their  ancient  home 
land.  This  century  will  surely  witness  the  greatest 
migration  of  a  thousand  years — Hebrews  coming 
from  the  east  and  from  the  west,  from  the  north 
and  from  the  south,  speaking  every  language  of 
earth,  entering  in  through  every  open  door,  whose 
hearts  are  aflame  with  the  pent-up  fires  of  centuries 
of  conflict.  And  as  they  enter  in  through  the  gates, 
into  the  land  made  sacred  by  the  promises  of  God, 
and  sanctified  by  the  noblest  history  of  earth,  they 
will  come  singing,  "Bless  the  Lord,  O  my  soul :  and 
all  that  is  within  me,  bless  his  holy  name!" 


THE   HANDS    ON    THE   DIAL  99 

Shall  we  permit  them  to  again  enter  Palestine, 
to  lay  again  the  foundations  of  a  mighty  kingdom 
there,  without  incorporating  into  their  political,  and 
social,  and  religious  life  the  principles  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ? 

Nineteen  hundred  years  ago  the  Man  of  sor- 
rows stood  on  the  hilltop  overlooking  Jerusalem. 
And  as  he  gazed  upon  his  beloved  city,  he  wept  over 
it:  "O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the 
prophets,  and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  her ! 
How  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children 
together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under 
her  wings,  and  ye  would  not!  Behold,  your  house 
is  left  unto  you  desolate.  For  I  say  unto  you,  Ye 
shall  not  see  me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say.  Blessed 
is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord!"  And 
how  empty  and  desolate  has  been  their  house  for 
nineteen  hundred  years ! 

The  hands  on  the  dial  point  to  the  hour  when 
Christianity  must  press  home  the  claims  of  Christ 
upon  his  people,  that  when  they  shall  lay  again  the 
foundations  of  their  ancient  glory  and  power  in 
the  world,  they  shall  be  laid  upon  Christ  and  him 
crucified. 

Oh,  how  the  subject  grips  us,  and  fills  us,  and 
thrills  us!  And  how  we,  in  fancy,  can  see  a  time 
coming  speedily  when  there  shall  be  a  re-enactment 
of  a  scene  which  startled  Jerusalem  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  ago,  when  a  new  triumphal  entry  of  our 
Lord  shall  be  made  into  Jerusalem,  when  a  new  and 
a  mighty  host  of  the  redeemed  of  God  shall  shout 
as  did  they  of  old,  "Hosanna !  Hosanna !  Hosanna ! 
Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord !" 


100  CHRISTIANITY   AND    THE   JEW 

"He  has  sounded  forth  the  trumpet 

That  shall  never  call  retreat ; 
He  is  sifting  out  the  hearts  of  men 

Before  His  judgment-seat; 
Oh,  be  swift,  my  soul,  to  answer  him ! 
Be  jubilant,  my  feet!     Our  God  is  marching  on. 

"In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies 

Christ  was  born  across  the  sea ; 
With  a  glory  in  his  bosom 

That  transfigures  you  and  me ; 
As  he  died  to  make  men  holy, 
Let  us  die  to  make  men  free;  while  God  is  marching  on. 


